...and you STILL don't get it....you still don't see the contradiction. Everybody wants your hourly rate, right now, but that won't last long, the legacies got whacked pretty good, but it'll come back one step at a time.
I would guess that most of us on here wouldn't want your retirement "plan", work rules, work with guys that taxi-around at VR and then run out onto the ramp and start off-loading bags either.
Let's be clear, what little you have done at SWA to help this profession is far off-set by the damage that was done all those years agreeing to work harder for a fraction of what everybody else was getting.
You have only now reached, where the rest of legacies were back in 2001. They have all been knocked down and you have been left standing. That's great, and I don't wish any harm onto your pilot group, But don't come on here like your group are a bunch of trail-blazers at the edge of the envelope in improving conditions for pilots. That they are not.
And you still don't get what I'm saying. "
Agreeing to work harder for a fraction of whatever everybody else was getting" was not what happened. It was either work for that amount of pay, or don't work. Although I'm sure that would have been fine with you. In case it never occurred to you, that's how all NEW carriers work. Even the one
you work for was new once and didn't pay crap. My point was that it always got better and better at Southwest, and that
is a good example to set. As the company could safely afford more (because of our hard work), we got paid more. Legacy carriers go up and down like freakin' yo-yos, screwing their own pilots along the way. If that's what you want your life to be, and you want to think that's progress, then good for you. Seems a little short-sighted to me personally (especially giving away flying for a few bucks upfront), but hey, that's my opinion.
Don't like our work rules? Why? Are you really lazy or something? Our rules are great: you want more money, you work more. Pretty much as much as you want. It's that simple. You guys limit yourselves to no more than some arbitrary amount of hours, because ALPA wants more pilots to pay them dues, even if there's hardly enough work to justify those bodies. That costs the company much more for the same flying, but it works in the short term, at least on the up cycles. Not so much in the down cycles.
As far as our "retirement plan," it works pretty well for us. 401-K match and profit sharing are doing me personally pretty damn well, even in a down economy. And that's just not us. You can't blame the demise of the traditional retirement plan on Southwest, as much as I know you want to. It's been coming and it's been happening in ALL industries for quite a while now. Nobody can afford the DB plans anymore; there's too much retirement money and benefits promised, and funded by too little income. Especially as people live longer. Even the federal government is trying to switch from DB to DC for the military retirements. Can't afford it. It amounts to promisng essentially unlimited benefits for people without knowing how much they'll take in and how much they'll pay out in the future.
I'm not sure why you complain about our taxi speed or work groups helping each other out, at least in terms of business. The better the business runs, the more profit sharing for us. The less time we waste, the more we can pick up and make more money personally (if that's your inclination). Hey, that's good for the company
and us.
Now don't get me wrong--I'm not bitching about what you guys do. I don't care as much as Waveflyer, because I know your nature isn't going to change, and I don't want to raise my blood pressure over something I can't control. But I also think your digs on Southwest are crap. Don't blame us for your problems. The "damage to the industry" you describe is largely self-inflicted. It's just convenient for you to blame it on us, rather than looking in a mirror. Your way of negotiating is to hobble your company for your own short-term personal gain, knowing full well that you (or your juniors) will pay for it later on the downturns. And then you wonder, and then you complain about why so much of your flying is subbed out to regionals at a fraction of your pay...YOU caused this. We adapted; you did not. We work synergistically with the company to avoid the downturns that you
expect (and of course get). I say
our way works better for everyone. It seems to be "blazing a better trail" than YOU guys are doing.
Bubba