Screwball
You are absolutely correct pilots don't stick together, well they dont unless they have a union or representative body that holds them together. Maybe that's why management literally are venimous to the concept of BALPA as at that point the pilot work force becomes cohesive so the old "divide and conquer" management technique then becomes useless with a representative body in place.
Yep pilots will work for buttons, thats been happening ever since they brought in the dreaded BCPL so that kids only needed 200 hours to fly a jet. In the good old days of 700 hours there was a rights of passage from PPL - Flying Instructor to CPL, ie people had already been earning as an FI and expected to step up from buttons as a salary to a pilots' salary. Now there are multi crew licences were a pilot may never have flown an aircraft by themselves, what is the world coming to. Thats what happens when you let Europeans lose on your licensing system.
As for PM selling up ? Not a snowball in hell chance, the reasons being. He holds such a large %age of the company shares that he would have to sell to an institution or another airline. If he sold on the open market someone off loading that amount of shares in one go would drive the price down so low his investement would become value less. Also Jet2 is on the cusp of taking the next step to bigger aircraft, i think he relishes the challenge. You have met him he loves being on the flight line, he smiles out there the guy loves it. So the threat by management that PM will sell up? Thats like threatening kids with the "bogey man" the scare of the unknown and the "what would we do without Philip" threat it isnt going to happen. Not for a while, he has a vision and i think he is the Alpha type who will complete his vision and complete the challenges he has set himself.
Ryanair trying to poach jet2 pilots, that may work in Jet2 favour as they want to reduce the Winter numbers anyway so hey publish the contacyt details those who want to jump ship and it may mean less unpaid leave.
As for "being a slave to the industry" sadly i think we all became slaves to this industry and environment as soon as we stepped in a cockpit for the first time. Ever since then the 9 to 5 has never really appealed. But even as slaves we want to make the terms and conditions on the slave ship as comfortable and tolerable as possible.
Screwball your posts are intriguing and informative keep them coming.