A couple of weeks ago, Southwest Airlines pilots walked out on an employee rally. In a classy move, CEO Bob Jordan and Chief Operating Officer applauded and thanked those in the audience who cheered for supporting “the best pilots in the world.”
This week Southwest pilots walked out on the company again. They’re in contract negotiations and they’re making a public show of their unhappiness that the airline hasn’t yet met their demands.
SWAPA Pilots came out in full force to the @SouthwestAir rally in LAS yesterday to show how displeased with a lack of a contract we are. We will continue to fight for a contract worthy of the most productive #Pilots in the industry. pic.twitter.com/m3JdsDzmDG
— Southwest Airlines Pilots Association (@swapapilots) February 23, 2023
There’s no question that Southwest’s once-vaunted labor relations are frayed with their pilots at present. The airline didn’t furlough anyone during the pandemic, while American furloughed nearly 20,000 including pilots. But memories are short. It seems pilots will be walking out at every rally until there’s a new contract.
United’s pilots also turned their back on CEO Scott Kirby. Pilots are showing that the culture is being damaged and the only way to stop it is to capitulate on wages and work rules.
Ultimately though a pilot strike or coordinated (and therefore illegal) work-to-rule job action can bring down an airline. That’s their leverage. This is just juvenile theater, but if it does signify cultural harm and thus harm to the business that will hurt both Southwest and the pilots in the long run.
What Southwest needs is a new CEO.
No doubt Herb is SPINNING in his grave watching what’s happening to his airline! No one is happy with this “new” Southwest!
So stunning and brave of “professionals” who work 80 hours a month.
Not sure why you call it juvenile behavior Gary…what would you have them do to make their displeasure known? All the airlines just drag their feet when it comes to negotiations because the RLA greatly favors the airlines as the members have little leverage lest they get accused of a work stoppage. The longer the company keeps the union members working under the current contract then there’s more $$$ to be saved and rewarded to C-Suite members.
80 hours a month with the responsibility during every one of those hours for a guesstimate of the lives of 200 people. I would like to know what. John does for a living – does it have anywhere near that responsibility and pressure?
They don’t work 80 hrs a month. They fly 80-100 and are gone for 4 days, 24 hrs a day each week.
People posting they work 80 hours have no clue what a day in the life of a pilot is actually like.
And calling pilots’ behavior juvenile was a needless editorial input. What’s juvenile is thinking that 25 year old software is capable of handling the rosters and movements of tens of thousands of crew.
Ignorance is bliss.
OK Gary. We get it. You are in the tank for Airlines. You should at least try not to be so obvious about it.
Scene unfolds…(a true story)
INT. NIGHT. DINNER PARTY.
A group is in discussion on recent news items about some dockworker unionists seeking to protect their pay and working conditions. The company wants equivalent productivity to recently built SE Asian ports, but local port not equipped to for such crane rates and wants workers to take the fall.
“So, mate, you think you know what the real issue is, do you?”
“Yeah – the crane rates in Botany are less than Singapore. There’s poor productivity holding the country back. iI’s all the union’s fault.”
“And you resent these workers attempting to negotiate within their legal rights to enter collective bargaining whilst the employer stonewalls the negotiation, do you?”
“Absolutely. They are union scum”.
“So, who do you work for?”
“Nestle”
“And what’s you job?”
“Product manager.”
“Nice. But when was the last time you even attempted to ask your boss for any rise?”
“I never did”
“Why not”
“It doesn’t work like that in the company.”
“But do you think you are worth more than your current pay?”
“What? I don’t understand the question.”
“Well, if you’re good at your job and I assume you are, who don’t you ask for a pay rise?”
“It’s not that sort of company. What are you getting at?”
“It’s pretty simple, mate, you’re sitting here making judgments about your fellow countryman who are exercising their legal rights to seek better pay and conditions and you are too weak and scared to even ask for a pay rise yourself. You’ve got no balls.”
Dessert is hastily served.
Hey John, you sound like an airline lobbyist. Are you?
I think Gary Leff wanted to be an airline pilot, but he sucks at life so he just hides behind a computer.
Author sounds like a jaded apologist for airline mgmt in a continued attempt garner favor as a “journalist” from those upon whom he reports… I’m sure you’ll delete this comment, but only after reading it, which is all I’m looking for… you’re a loser, Gary. They want fair treatment, and their behavior isn’t juvenile, it’s a consequence of the behavior of the managers you’re attempting to prop up… those of us with the money are noticing… you write a blog, you’re not a pilot, you’re not an airline guy, you’re a blogger. Get [redacted -gl].
Guess what, the CEO is not going to say anything the pilots don’t already know at these meetings. They are not walking out of any type of negotiation, just management pushing the company narrative. Also pilots work a lot more than “80” hours a month. They may get paid 80 hours, but that often means 2 weeks on the road. Hard to compare with a 9-5 job unless you know what you’re talking about.
Good point Mr. Author, juvenile pilots, stuck under the Railway Labor Act with NO means of striking like every other union (go ask the railroad workers how much they liked the PEB Brandon crammed down their throats.
You did forget to mention all the stock buybacks of recent as management rewards themselves off the backs of labor. Bob Jordan going on TV and proving to the world he can’t lead and having a few picnics doesn’t fix the problem of pencil neck accountants running businesses. Accountants need to work at companies, no run them.
In closing, how do you feel about the wildcat strike of the New York Times employees, that was different how?
@chris nelms – you do not understand stock buybacks.
And pilots are not going to successfully portray themselves as the downtrodden working classes
@RJ – not every meeting is about conveying information, this one clearly did not have that as its primary purpose, your notion that “CEO is not going to say anything the pilots don’t already know at these meetings” is a complete non-sequitur even if it’s acceptable for someone to *show up at* and then *walk out of* a meeting because they already know the information. (Just don’t go in the first place if the meeting has low expected value, but certainly don’t make a show of your departure.)
Gary,
you are missing the point that the only meeting that the pilots want the company to attend is negotiating sessions with the union for a new contract.
I don’t know the details of each meeting between WN and its pilots’ union but there is probably more frustration at WN w/ the contract negotiation process than there is at even AA and UA, the latter of which has to at least partially blame their own elected union officials.
Given that every one of the big 4 is negotiating their pilot contract FIRST with the rest of the employees coming after based on the amount of increase that is necessary to gain pilots – no airline is willing to allow the percentage compensation gap between pilots and other employees to grow – EVERY WN employee wants the company to settle its pilot contract.
Delta’s contract vote is heading to a conclusion next week and is widely expected to handedly pass – which means the bill for other airlines will increase dramatically.
Delta has already provided investor guidance reflecting its union and non-union employee pay increases while no other airline has done so or can because they do not even have agreements that labor can vote on for most employee groups.
Given how costly the Christmas disaster was to WN’s finances, the company is trying desperately to not spend money until revenue recovers – which is hard to do given that there is still an apparent bookaway effect from at least some WN customers.
It is no surprise that WN labor relations are so bad right now and they won’t get better until the company is either willing to make long-term cost increase commitments or get their revenues back to levels that can support those employee compensation increases.
Management sucks, ALPA sucks, and I’m sure SWAPS sucks too. I’m an ALPA pilot for 8 years now. I’m 50% at my airline, and I’m here to tell you that the top 10% of pilots at any airline, no matter what Union, are the ones who ruin the industry. Since everything goes by seniority, including monthly schedule bids, yearly vacation, open trip assignments, and yearly training, the senior pilots get the best of life while having the benefit of choosing all the best schedules, vacation, open trips and training dates. The senior pilots make 350K-600K a year, while the junior ones make half that while doing more flying and longer work days. Sure, the senior guys will tell you how hard they had it back during 9/11 with furloughs and then years of low pay, but guess what, they bitched about the same things I’m bitching about back then. When it comes to screwing the junior pilots, or making the upper 10% percent have better everything, the upper 10% will always choose to screw the junior pilots. It’s also the same ones who orchestrated the sad walkout at Southwest we are talking about now. Just don’t show up if you want to prove something. All those pilots who walked out, would be the first one to punish their kids if they walked out of the room, while they were talking! Thus, proving the unions are nothing but a bunch of hypocrites who think they run the show. If we want better pay and benefits, then argue at the collective bargaining meetings, instead of bringing our Union laundry into the public with a childish “walk out” and then posting it on Twitter. So to sum it up, everyone sucks, from unions to management. Most of all, nobody is ever going to feel sorry for a pilot who makes more on average, than the average joe going to an office for 40 hrs a week. Change the union mentality, from a pyramid scheme, to one that makes it equal for all union members, then maybe management will treat us better, like say, adults, then children. Especially when the union comes up with childish tactics.
What’s rather humourous is that the rally was to celebrate southwest’s performance for 2022! Something I would think they’d be hiding from due to their very publicized melt down. Also, you didn’t mention the Southwest flight attendants that chose to picket outside the event. Not really surprised as Southwest has always been very slow in all it’s labor contracts. It took the pilots almost five years to complete one. The last time the flight attendants got a contract they came close to striking. Their mechanics that outed the company’s shoddy maintenance procedures that the FAA POI was overlooking were blamed since they were in long contact negotiations. As others have pointed out the upper managers delay, take bonuses and pay increases while holding off employee contracts. Meanwhile those in need of a new contract go years without a pay raise and struggle as cost of living continues to increase. So walking out on an employee event meant to celebrate after a disastrous melt down is hardly juvenile, especially when that employee group had been warning of such issues for a long time. So maybe the company’s upper management will listen when their employees turn around and walk away now since they wouldn’t listen in the past.
@Rich gets it, I have no issue with pilots getting the bag overall. The way ALPA, SWAPA, and APA scream about how management can’t be trusted, but you can trust the union no questions asked is beyond hypocritical.
They demand “solidarity” from juniors even though juniors are the ones taking it in the rear most of the time.
ALPA, SWAPA, and APA only care about the union. Members are just there to be used as fodder for leadership.
Walking out of rallies, turning your back on your CEO, or “owning” your company on Twitter is akin to a five year old being told he can’t eat ice cream in bed.
You claim that pilots leverage is to do something that is illegal but their “grandstanding” is juvenile? It would appear that the pilots are abiding by the rule of law and drawing attention to their overdue contract. That is not juvenile.