Bob, Chimbu, Airbubba, and especially CWS: very good points about our business: the mostly retired SOBs at American who sold the future new-hires' salaries down the river, and about the scabs or scabs-in-waiting.
We had a list of Eastern scabs (who now work for us) posted in the main flight bag room at a northern crew base. Nobody can go back in a time machine and change the fact that they decided to work as a SCAB. Their names stay on permanent lists in order to remind everybody who the most selfish pilots are, whether their pilot group is now represented by ALPA or not (i.e. Continental). That still does not change what they did.
They care nothing about the market value of their skills as a pilot. Some might need to impress women (and guys/gals at a high school reunion) with their pilot uniform in order to "get lucky". They are the most self-seeking chumps and suckers in our profession. Continental allegedly hired one during their strike in '83-84, who was a convicted child molester. Maybe it was true or not, but Continental would hire whoever it needed, in order to move airplanes from point A to B.
Lorenzo's only goal was to break the back of organized labor, no matter what the results. Look at what Continental was like between the iron-fisted exploitation of Lorenzo (check on how the seniority lists were put together...) and the rebirth under Gordon Bethune. Is it a paradox that highly-successful Southwest Airlines has been heavily unionized for many years?
Maybe it is not a paradox- Southwest seems to be one of the few US airlines to have had inspired leadership and a commitment from upper management to look at more than just the short-term cost structure.
[ 02 August 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]
[ 03 August 2001: Message edited by: Ignition Override ]