Count N,
You can do far better than that thin generalisation.
You can't presume to know each individual's motive, nor to assume an overriding motive for the collective. It may suit your mental well-being to assume that was what drove individuals, but the truth is much more nuanced and multi-faceted than all that. From speaking to those colleagues of mine who did volunteer, each and every one had a different reason, if not reasons.
Most were a genuine belief in the proximity of the company to bankruptcy due to imminent withdrawal of credit. I've heard a number of days quoted but it seems sure we weren't far away from the financial lifelines being withdrawn and then we'd have sunk. That's how, as perverse as it seems, we can suddenly buy airlines like BMI as once our credit was assured again, we gained a certain degree of liquidity.
Like it or not, a lot of people volunteered because they were pretty tired of the overwrought caricature drawn of themselves by such beloved characters as Admin from BASSA. I grant that's a vicious circle these days but the comms being spouted without regard for adult rules of engagement drove quite a few individuals into a "
you" response to BASSA.
I'll freely admit, as well, I spoke to one or two distasteful individuals who volunteered just because they wanted to screw over the cabin crew community. I'll wager there were those from the ground who did the same too.
Just as you are, so are we all individuals, and we all sit at different places on the spectrum politically and with our regard to the company and how we perceive it. You might think that the flight crew community "had it in" for you in the past few years and this is some kind of overdue natural justice. Just don't labour under the impression that any schadenfreude you feel like revelling in is applicable to everyone. A good deal of us are, and have been constantly, aware that it's always someone's turn next - and we're just another unit cost in the airline. Always have been, always will be.
The difference that remains, as I alluded to earlier, is that the manner in which you conducted your dispute left you with your backs against the wall and has left you with a closed employment group which right now has no prospects of growth (regardless of the desirability of same, ref your PM). We're under no illusions that either of these options is a "win" for us but, it's about being rational about what's achievable and trying to ensure we're still in as good a shape as we can be for the next round of cuts, and the round after that.
I suspect we can agree that, if nothing else, there will be cuts again. And again. As long as we maintain a single seniority group of flight crew, we're a damned sight better off than with no new entrants into our group. That's why this isn't quite the apocalyptic visitation of Walsh that some of your colleagues seem to think it is. Don't get me wrong, the filling in the sandwich is still decidedly off, but it's not quite crap, if you follow my crude comparison.
Make of it what you will