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02-19-2022, 12:29 PM
#1211
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Dec 2017
Position: 737 FO
Posts: 988
FUPM.
1221er here. After how the company used me as a pawn for either more fiat money or to wring concessions from SWAPA, I don't necessarily want to cook the golden goose, but I want the biggest chunk out of it that I can take right up to it bleeding out. The other unions can represent their members' interests; it's not my union's job to worry about how our piece of the pie cuts into someone else's. If someone else wants pilot compensation, they can always go get their ratings via the fake ab initio nonsense management dreamed up.
1221er here. After how the company used me as a pawn for either more fiat money or to wring concessions from SWAPA, I don't necessarily want to cook the golden goose, but I want the biggest chunk out of it that I can take right up to it bleeding out. The other unions can represent their members' interests; it's not my union's job to worry about how our piece of the pie cuts into someone else's. If someone else wants pilot compensation, they can always go get their ratings via the fake ab initio nonsense management dreamed up.
02-19-2022, 01:51 PM
#1212
Spikes the Koolaid
Joined APC: Jul 2015
Position: 737
Posts: 403
Oh I was talking with another SWA buddy and getting their perspective on things. Their take was many pilots are ****ed at the company over the 1221 but don’t hold the pilot group to any kind of accountability for giving a middle finger to any kind of concession in the hopes of avoiding WARNs. He said loss of culture is as much a “pilot group thing” as it is a company thing - ie. if we perpetuate the ME at all costs, screw everyone else mentality then we’ll get what we get.
Everybody talks about how American/etc have a worse culture. Is that the employees fault? Do they just only hire jerks? Of course not. I know many good people there. And even if they DID just hire all the butthead pilots, that would STILL be a management decision, and therefore management setting the culture.
The company came to us and said 10% or we're furloughing. That the pilots decided not to take concessions (while we were already being asked to step up to the plate to help out, and had already taken a big pay cut), which was not a giant middle finger to management so that we could "me me me". It was a calling of management's bluff when we had 5 years of cash in the bank where a 10% concession would have given the company an extra 22 days of extra cash flow.
We even agreed to negotiate and offer them cost savings in other ways, but ways that would be paid back during the good times. These were not only turned down by management, but each subsequent offer (demand) from the company got worse and demanded more. All while Gary took an initial 10% cut on his base salary (which works out to a 1% cut of total compensation) followed by a benevolent 100% base pay cut (which worked out to 10% of total compensation, which ended up not happening because he got a record bonus in 2020.
The mindset was not "screw you I got mine". It was "we've already given up disproportionate pay due to the max (everybody got the max bonus, even though it was only pilots and flight attendants who sacrificed pay during it), we're not going to give you money just to look good to wall street/government, when you have 5 years of cash in your war chest, with the trend of cash burn going in the right direction."
Let's also not forget that during that time, the company refused to engage swapa in cost cutting measures like leave and early separation. ETO, ExTO, and VSP were all implemented extra-contractualy, without meaningful input or endorsement from swapa.
So no. 1221(1220) was not due to the pilots' selfishness.
02-19-2022, 02:18 PM
#1213
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Apr 2013
Posts: 3,665
Junior captain hired at the tail end of the lost decade. Have always voted no. Most assuredly will vote no again whenever this current negotiation produces anything. Will vote no on TA2 also I'm sure, and likely would vote no on TA3 and 4 if we ever got there. Why? Because it won't even be up to "industry standard." We have some very good things here such as a flexible schedule and good vacation pulls. EVERYTHING else is sub-par.
The "accomodations" that have been talked about as a means of turning people like me into yes voters is a joke. From my perspective, on Oct 4th I was told I'd likely be out of work within a few weeks/months for not bowing down to take the forced jab. I'll stop from sermonizing all the myriad reasons why. Either way, all those easy accomodations didn't come from the goodness of anyone's heart in Dallas. And it's still unsettled territory. They threatened to fire me and never really backed down. We've merely come to a temporary stalemate. I'll NEVER forget the position that put me (and thousands of like-minded people) in.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This place has hired thousands of Pollyannas that would vote yes to anything. Has the mindset flipped enough with the 1221, etc? I guess we'll see. But even SNAPA 2.0 hasn't done a single thing to get this process rolling! Hint - you have to file for mediation before the clock really starts.
Look at all the posters here that gave me grief because I think new hire pay is something the company needs so badly that we could use it as leverage! I'm not hopeful. We're doomed. Even in the best negotiating environment we'll likely ever see.
In all honesty, if I was a car salesman, I'd be smiling from ear to ear if a southwestern trailways jockey came through the door.
The "accomodations" that have been talked about as a means of turning people like me into yes voters is a joke. From my perspective, on Oct 4th I was told I'd likely be out of work within a few weeks/months for not bowing down to take the forced jab. I'll stop from sermonizing all the myriad reasons why. Either way, all those easy accomodations didn't come from the goodness of anyone's heart in Dallas. And it's still unsettled territory. They threatened to fire me and never really backed down. We've merely come to a temporary stalemate. I'll NEVER forget the position that put me (and thousands of like-minded people) in.
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. This place has hired thousands of Pollyannas that would vote yes to anything. Has the mindset flipped enough with the 1221, etc? I guess we'll see. But even SNAPA 2.0 hasn't done a single thing to get this process rolling! Hint - you have to file for mediation before the clock really starts.
Look at all the posters here that gave me grief because I think new hire pay is something the company needs so badly that we could use it as leverage! I'm not hopeful. We're doomed. Even in the best negotiating environment we'll likely ever see.
In all honesty, if I was a car salesman, I'd be smiling from ear to ear if a southwestern trailways jockey came through the door.
We would be idiots to start the mediation clock again and settle our contract before everyone else...again.
It's our turn to not go first in pattern bargaining. I am fine with our unions current approach to negotiations. We have the smart people with the data, the cunning, and the will to carry this out. The company has a former SWAPA political hack that is in a traditionally expendable job position who will almost certainly go spend more time with his family within the next couple of years.
Wind your watch, collect another day of retro pay, and trust the people that SWAPA has doing this job.
02-19-2022, 03:03 PM
#1214
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Feb 2018
Posts: 1,264
We would be idiots to start the mediation clock again and settle our contract before everyone else...again.
It's our turn to not go first in pattern bargaining. I am fine with our unions current approach to negotiations. We have the smart people with the data, the cunning, and the will to carry this out. The company has a former SWAPA political hack that is in a traditionally expendable job position who will almost certainly go spend more time with his family within the next couple of years.
Wind your watch, collect another day of retro pay, and trust the people that SWAPA has doing this job.
It's our turn to not go first in pattern bargaining. I am fine with our unions current approach to negotiations. We have the smart people with the data, the cunning, and the will to carry this out. The company has a former SWAPA political hack that is in a traditionally expendable job position who will almost certainly go spend more time with his family within the next couple of years.
Wind your watch, collect another day of retro pay, and trust the people that SWAPA has doing this job.
Also, to your point about not going first: if, several years after we enter mediation, an impasse were to be declared, we do not have to go on strike after the 30-day cooling off period and possible PEB conclude. We could continue to negotiate while we wait for the other guys to wrap up their agreements. The only risk we would take is that the company locks us out in the midst of a historic pilot shortage.
Last edited by Lewbronski; 02-19-2022 at 03:15 PM.
02-19-2022, 03:36 PM
#1215
Gets Weekends Off
Joined APC: Aug 2015
Posts: 643
We would be idiots to start the mediation clock again and settle our contract before everyone else...again.
It's our turn to not go first in pattern bargaining. I am fine with our unions current approach to negotiations. We have the smart people with the data, the cunning, and the will to carry this out. The company has a former SWAPA political hack that is in a traditionally expendable job position who will almost certainly go spend more time with his family within the next couple of years.
Wind your watch, collect another day of retro pay, and trust the people that SWAPA has doing this job.
It's our turn to not go first in pattern bargaining. I am fine with our unions current approach to negotiations. We have the smart people with the data, the cunning, and the will to carry this out. The company has a former SWAPA political hack that is in a traditionally expendable job position who will almost certainly go spend more time with his family within the next couple of years.
Wind your watch, collect another day of retro pay, and trust the people that SWAPA has doing this job.
02-19-2022, 04:21 PM
#1216
Spikes the Koolaid
Joined APC: Jul 2015
Position: 737
Posts: 403
One more thing about the culture being top down, didn't want to muddy the response about the 1221 too much.
What things has the company done to show that the "culture" deserves those quotes?
Culture used to be hanging out with a cool crew after a long day: we no longer fly more than a leg or two with a crew, and then never see them again. This is due to a myriad of reasons, partially 117, partially contractual differences between the two unions, but also partially due to the blisteringly smart technology that the company uses to optimize schedules. You can't build a relationship with people you've only spent a leg or two with and will never see again, nor is it worth the risk to do so. Which leads to the second culture-destroying part of this. We have management of one of the two primary flight crew unions actively soliciting write-ups against the other group. This would be bad enough if it was taken in a vacuum, but the fact that there has of yet been ZERO clarification from our department leadership, their department leadership, labor relations (ha!), or executive leadership. It's a standing "kill" order (more on that later). We've also been told that, essentially, we're guilty until proven innocent, and even then, you're probably still guilty. Why on earth would I want to spend one more minute with another work group when I have direct and explicit messaging from leadership that we are a target and they're ok with that?
People before profits: I mean this one is obvious. I've only been here for 2.5 negotiations cycles, but it's clear that management will obfuscate, delay, and outright lie to try as hard as they can to not give us a contract worthy of our contributions and sacrifices. The evidence list for this is long: hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to give inside information and negotiate on their behalf behind the guise of playing devil's advocate, hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to directly negotiate against us, lying in management updates on the progress of negotiations and their intent, lying about the Max being silent (so as to force us to fly the max without it being in our contract), using 1221 people as pawns either to convince wall street that they're doing something or as pawns to convince the government to give us more cheese, slow-rolling the current contract cycle by refusing to look at a rewrite (of COURSE they're ok with the current language, it has holes you can drive a battleship through), sending out messaging that us getting more money will bankrupt the company (followed by record profits after TA2), stealing around $1m a year from us in incorrect pay audits (that always favor the company), refusing any input or requests from swapa on technology issues blaming cost (even when it would save money in the long run), and of course the handful of status-quo violations that have occurred surrounding pay issues over the last two years under the guise of covid.
Silos: as you've probably noticed, these issues are becoming more and more inter-related. There is definitely a feeling amongst ALL of the employees at southwest that we work for our separate departments. There's all sorts of evidence for this (and these are just a broad look), with flight attendants being told to write up pilots, the fa union sending out an inexplicable (if not unwarranted, for other reasons) VNC about the VP of Flight Ops, Ops agents STILL refusing to understand how to list pilots for the Jumpseat (and even the mentality of resentment that we're flying for free in a location they can't), the public knowledge that ground ops runs the airline, the public declaration from flight ops training scheduling that flight ops has no jurisdiction in telling them what to do (see the Zero minute report to deadhead issue a few years ago under AK), the almost comic siloing in the fact that the GO works from home while front line employees are still... on the front lines, and of course employee relations and legal pressing for a "clean kill" on a pilot termination.
Lying: there's a long saying at swa that the only way you can get fired here is for lying or stealing (I suppose the laughable ratio of incorrect audits could be considered theft). Ultimately I think the biggest detriment to the culture at swa has been the mantra of recent (and not so recent) management teams of "do as we say not as we do". The amount of lies and deliberately misleading statements issued by self serving members of management has been truly disheartening. The max is silent, you have my word he won't be fired, we gave the negotiating team our language ahead of time, schedule meltdowns are caused by pilots calling in sick, I'm taking a 10%/100% pay cut, it's impossible to do meals for international flying, there's no force majeure language, we worked with swapa to come to x agreement, we're going to go bankrupt if we do that, that's how vnav is supposed to work on a 73, we're keeping the 717s, we'll make you whole on your next contract if you agree to flying the 800s, pretty much every single one of CDs negotiations updates, the PHL deicing guy was definitely not the target of a concerted effort by management to fire him, the list goes on and on. Yet there are never any consequences for these statements from management. If I lie to my leadership, I would be, rightfully, disciplined with the possibility of termination. Yet the only thing that happens to our leadership is bigger bonuses, promotions, or, at the worst (and in only one case) returning to the line in their $400k position.
By and large, I can objectively understand the reasoning behind many of these shifts in culture in management. We live in different times than Herb's airline did, both externally from a culture standpoint, and due to the sheer size of the operation. We can't run an airline with over 60k employees on handshake deals and a mom and pop shop culture. From a liability and financial standpoint, it's just not feasible or smart. But the unfortunate side effects of this probably necessary shift have come at the erosion of our once heralded culture.
Due to all of this, more and more people are resigning to what we can see and trust, which in the world of organized labor is an iron-clad contract, where everything from pay rates to disability protections to parking allowance are codified in plain language, not some feel-good assurance from the company that they luv us.
What things has the company done to show that the "culture" deserves those quotes?
Culture used to be hanging out with a cool crew after a long day: we no longer fly more than a leg or two with a crew, and then never see them again. This is due to a myriad of reasons, partially 117, partially contractual differences between the two unions, but also partially due to the blisteringly smart technology that the company uses to optimize schedules. You can't build a relationship with people you've only spent a leg or two with and will never see again, nor is it worth the risk to do so. Which leads to the second culture-destroying part of this. We have management of one of the two primary flight crew unions actively soliciting write-ups against the other group. This would be bad enough if it was taken in a vacuum, but the fact that there has of yet been ZERO clarification from our department leadership, their department leadership, labor relations (ha!), or executive leadership. It's a standing "kill" order (more on that later). We've also been told that, essentially, we're guilty until proven innocent, and even then, you're probably still guilty. Why on earth would I want to spend one more minute with another work group when I have direct and explicit messaging from leadership that we are a target and they're ok with that?
People before profits: I mean this one is obvious. I've only been here for 2.5 negotiations cycles, but it's clear that management will obfuscate, delay, and outright lie to try as hard as they can to not give us a contract worthy of our contributions and sacrifices. The evidence list for this is long: hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to give inside information and negotiate on their behalf behind the guise of playing devil's advocate, hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to directly negotiate against us, lying in management updates on the progress of negotiations and their intent, lying about the Max being silent (so as to force us to fly the max without it being in our contract), using 1221 people as pawns either to convince wall street that they're doing something or as pawns to convince the government to give us more cheese, slow-rolling the current contract cycle by refusing to look at a rewrite (of COURSE they're ok with the current language, it has holes you can drive a battleship through), sending out messaging that us getting more money will bankrupt the company (followed by record profits after TA2), stealing around $1m a year from us in incorrect pay audits (that always favor the company), refusing any input or requests from swapa on technology issues blaming cost (even when it would save money in the long run), and of course the handful of status-quo violations that have occurred surrounding pay issues over the last two years under the guise of covid.
Silos: as you've probably noticed, these issues are becoming more and more inter-related. There is definitely a feeling amongst ALL of the employees at southwest that we work for our separate departments. There's all sorts of evidence for this (and these are just a broad look), with flight attendants being told to write up pilots, the fa union sending out an inexplicable (if not unwarranted, for other reasons) VNC about the VP of Flight Ops, Ops agents STILL refusing to understand how to list pilots for the Jumpseat (and even the mentality of resentment that we're flying for free in a location they can't), the public knowledge that ground ops runs the airline, the public declaration from flight ops training scheduling that flight ops has no jurisdiction in telling them what to do (see the Zero minute report to deadhead issue a few years ago under AK), the almost comic siloing in the fact that the GO works from home while front line employees are still... on the front lines, and of course employee relations and legal pressing for a "clean kill" on a pilot termination.
Lying: there's a long saying at swa that the only way you can get fired here is for lying or stealing (I suppose the laughable ratio of incorrect audits could be considered theft). Ultimately I think the biggest detriment to the culture at swa has been the mantra of recent (and not so recent) management teams of "do as we say not as we do". The amount of lies and deliberately misleading statements issued by self serving members of management has been truly disheartening. The max is silent, you have my word he won't be fired, we gave the negotiating team our language ahead of time, schedule meltdowns are caused by pilots calling in sick, I'm taking a 10%/100% pay cut, it's impossible to do meals for international flying, there's no force majeure language, we worked with swapa to come to x agreement, we're going to go bankrupt if we do that, that's how vnav is supposed to work on a 73, we're keeping the 717s, we'll make you whole on your next contract if you agree to flying the 800s, pretty much every single one of CDs negotiations updates, the PHL deicing guy was definitely not the target of a concerted effort by management to fire him, the list goes on and on. Yet there are never any consequences for these statements from management. If I lie to my leadership, I would be, rightfully, disciplined with the possibility of termination. Yet the only thing that happens to our leadership is bigger bonuses, promotions, or, at the worst (and in only one case) returning to the line in their $400k position.
By and large, I can objectively understand the reasoning behind many of these shifts in culture in management. We live in different times than Herb's airline did, both externally from a culture standpoint, and due to the sheer size of the operation. We can't run an airline with over 60k employees on handshake deals and a mom and pop shop culture. From a liability and financial standpoint, it's just not feasible or smart. But the unfortunate side effects of this probably necessary shift have come at the erosion of our once heralded culture.
Due to all of this, more and more people are resigning to what we can see and trust, which in the world of organized labor is an iron-clad contract, where everything from pay rates to disability protections to parking allowance are codified in plain language, not some feel-good assurance from the company that they luv us.
02-19-2022, 05:20 PM
#1219
Gets Weekend Reserve
Thread Starter
Joined APC: Jul 2007
Posts: 3,774
One more thing about the culture being top down, didn't want to muddy the response about the 1221 too much.
What things has the company done to show that the "culture" deserves those quotes?
Culture used to be hanging out with a cool crew after a long day: we no longer fly more than a leg or two with a crew, and then never see them again. This is due to a myriad of reasons, partially 117, partially contractual differences between the two unions, but also partially due to the blisteringly smart technology that the company uses to optimize schedules. You can't build a relationship with people you've only spent a leg or two with and will never see again, nor is it worth the risk to do so. Which leads to the second culture-destroying part of this. We have management of one of the two primary flight crew unions actively soliciting write-ups against the other group. This would be bad enough if it was taken in a vacuum, but the fact that there has of yet been ZERO clarification from our department leadership, their department leadership, labor relations (ha!), or executive leadership. It's a standing "kill" order (more on that later). We've also been told that, essentially, we're guilty until proven innocent, and even then, you're probably still guilty. Why on earth would I want to spend one more minute with another work group when I have direct and explicit messaging from leadership that we are a target and they're ok with that?
People before profits: I mean this one is obvious. I've only been here for 2.5 negotiations cycles, but it's clear that management will obfuscate, delay, and outright lie to try as hard as they can to not give us a contract worthy of our contributions and sacrifices. The evidence list for this is long: hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to give inside information and negotiate on their behalf behind the guise of playing devil's advocate, hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to directly negotiate against us, lying in management updates on the progress of negotiations and their intent, lying about the Max being silent (so as to force us to fly the max without it being in our contract), using 1221 people as pawns either to convince wall street that they're doing something or as pawns to convince the government to give us more cheese, slow-rolling the current contract cycle by refusing to look at a rewrite (of COURSE they're ok with the current language, it has holes you can drive a battleship through), sending out messaging that us getting more money will bankrupt the company (followed by record profits after TA2), stealing around $1m a year from us in incorrect pay audits (that always favor the company), refusing any input or requests from swapa on technology issues blaming cost (even when it would save money in the long run), and of course the handful of status-quo violations that have occurred surrounding pay issues over the last two years under the guise of covid.
Silos: as you've probably noticed, these issues are becoming more and more inter-related. There is definitely a feeling amongst ALL of the employees at southwest that we work for our separate departments. There's all sorts of evidence for this (and these are just a broad look), with flight attendants being told to write up pilots, the fa union sending out an inexplicable (if not unwarranted, for other reasons) VNC about the VP of Flight Ops, Ops agents STILL refusing to understand how to list pilots for the Jumpseat (and even the mentality of resentment that we're flying for free in a location they can't), the public knowledge that ground ops runs the airline, the public declaration from flight ops training scheduling that flight ops has no jurisdiction in telling them what to do (see the Zero minute report to deadhead issue a few years ago under AK), the almost comic siloing in the fact that the GO works from home while front line employees are still... on the front lines, and of course employee relations and legal pressing for a "clean kill" on a pilot termination.
Lying: there's a long saying at swa that the only way you can get fired here is for lying or stealing (I suppose the laughable ratio of incorrect audits could be considered theft). Ultimately I think the biggest detriment to the culture at swa has been the mantra of recent (and not so recent) management teams of "do as we say not as we do". The amount of lies and deliberately misleading statements issued by self serving members of management has been truly disheartening. The max is silent, you have my word he won't be fired, we gave the negotiating team our language ahead of time, schedule meltdowns are caused by pilots calling in sick, I'm taking a 10%/100% pay cut, it's impossible to do meals for international flying, there's no force majeure language, we worked with swapa to come to x agreement, we're going to go bankrupt if we do that, that's how vnav is supposed to work on a 73, we're keeping the 717s, we'll make you whole on your next contract if you agree to flying the 800s, pretty much every single one of CDs negotiations updates, the PHL deicing guy was definitely not the target of a concerted effort by management to fire him, the list goes on and on. Yet there are never any consequences for these statements from management. If I lie to my leadership, I would be, rightfully, disciplined with the possibility of termination. Yet the only thing that happens to our leadership is bigger bonuses, promotions, or, at the worst (and in only one case) returning to the line in their $400k position.
By and large, I can objectively understand the reasoning behind many of these shifts in culture in management. We live in different times than Herb's airline did, both externally from a culture standpoint, and due to the sheer size of the operation. We can't run an airline with over 60k employees on handshake deals and a mom and pop shop culture. From a liability and financial standpoint, it's just not feasible or smart. But the unfortunate side effects of this probably necessary shift have come at the erosion of our once heralded culture.
Due to all of this, more and more people are resigning to what we can see and trust, which in the world of organized labor is an iron-clad contract, where everything from pay rates to disability protections to parking allowance are codified in plain language, not some feel-good assurance from the company that they luv us.
What things has the company done to show that the "culture" deserves those quotes?
Culture used to be hanging out with a cool crew after a long day: we no longer fly more than a leg or two with a crew, and then never see them again. This is due to a myriad of reasons, partially 117, partially contractual differences between the two unions, but also partially due to the blisteringly smart technology that the company uses to optimize schedules. You can't build a relationship with people you've only spent a leg or two with and will never see again, nor is it worth the risk to do so. Which leads to the second culture-destroying part of this. We have management of one of the two primary flight crew unions actively soliciting write-ups against the other group. This would be bad enough if it was taken in a vacuum, but the fact that there has of yet been ZERO clarification from our department leadership, their department leadership, labor relations (ha!), or executive leadership. It's a standing "kill" order (more on that later). We've also been told that, essentially, we're guilty until proven innocent, and even then, you're probably still guilty. Why on earth would I want to spend one more minute with another work group when I have direct and explicit messaging from leadership that we are a target and they're ok with that?
People before profits: I mean this one is obvious. I've only been here for 2.5 negotiations cycles, but it's clear that management will obfuscate, delay, and outright lie to try as hard as they can to not give us a contract worthy of our contributions and sacrifices. The evidence list for this is long: hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to give inside information and negotiate on their behalf behind the guise of playing devil's advocate, hiring Benedict Arnolds from within our group to directly negotiate against us, lying in management updates on the progress of negotiations and their intent, lying about the Max being silent (so as to force us to fly the max without it being in our contract), using 1221 people as pawns either to convince wall street that they're doing something or as pawns to convince the government to give us more cheese, slow-rolling the current contract cycle by refusing to look at a rewrite (of COURSE they're ok with the current language, it has holes you can drive a battleship through), sending out messaging that us getting more money will bankrupt the company (followed by record profits after TA2), stealing around $1m a year from us in incorrect pay audits (that always favor the company), refusing any input or requests from swapa on technology issues blaming cost (even when it would save money in the long run), and of course the handful of status-quo violations that have occurred surrounding pay issues over the last two years under the guise of covid.
Silos: as you've probably noticed, these issues are becoming more and more inter-related. There is definitely a feeling amongst ALL of the employees at southwest that we work for our separate departments. There's all sorts of evidence for this (and these are just a broad look), with flight attendants being told to write up pilots, the fa union sending out an inexplicable (if not unwarranted, for other reasons) VNC about the VP of Flight Ops, Ops agents STILL refusing to understand how to list pilots for the Jumpseat (and even the mentality of resentment that we're flying for free in a location they can't), the public knowledge that ground ops runs the airline, the public declaration from flight ops training scheduling that flight ops has no jurisdiction in telling them what to do (see the Zero minute report to deadhead issue a few years ago under AK), the almost comic siloing in the fact that the GO works from home while front line employees are still... on the front lines, and of course employee relations and legal pressing for a "clean kill" on a pilot termination.
Lying: there's a long saying at swa that the only way you can get fired here is for lying or stealing (I suppose the laughable ratio of incorrect audits could be considered theft). Ultimately I think the biggest detriment to the culture at swa has been the mantra of recent (and not so recent) management teams of "do as we say not as we do". The amount of lies and deliberately misleading statements issued by self serving members of management has been truly disheartening. The max is silent, you have my word he won't be fired, we gave the negotiating team our language ahead of time, schedule meltdowns are caused by pilots calling in sick, I'm taking a 10%/100% pay cut, it's impossible to do meals for international flying, there's no force majeure language, we worked with swapa to come to x agreement, we're going to go bankrupt if we do that, that's how vnav is supposed to work on a 73, we're keeping the 717s, we'll make you whole on your next contract if you agree to flying the 800s, pretty much every single one of CDs negotiations updates, the PHL deicing guy was definitely not the target of a concerted effort by management to fire him, the list goes on and on. Yet there are never any consequences for these statements from management. If I lie to my leadership, I would be, rightfully, disciplined with the possibility of termination. Yet the only thing that happens to our leadership is bigger bonuses, promotions, or, at the worst (and in only one case) returning to the line in their $400k position.
By and large, I can objectively understand the reasoning behind many of these shifts in culture in management. We live in different times than Herb's airline did, both externally from a culture standpoint, and due to the sheer size of the operation. We can't run an airline with over 60k employees on handshake deals and a mom and pop shop culture. From a liability and financial standpoint, it's just not feasible or smart. But the unfortunate side effects of this probably necessary shift have come at the erosion of our once heralded culture.
Due to all of this, more and more people are resigning to what we can see and trust, which in the world of organized labor is an iron-clad contract, where everything from pay rates to disability protections to parking allowance are codified in plain language, not some feel-good assurance from the company that they luv us.
Nailed it.
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