Bingo. I just talked to my rep and that is exactly what’s going on. Plus the timing of the YES vote will line up nicely with the start of the summer travel season. Strategically they’re doing it right.

 

May 1 gives us a nice media cycle that will undoubtedly impact recruiting and spring break bookings in the meantime.

 

All that matters is winning. Wring the goose's neck and make it drink some "Fleet". Have GK hold the bucket.

 

They should give out "vote yes to strike" bag tags so everyone will see them as we walk through the airport

 

Shouldn't SWAPA spend some time with new hires explaining this stuff? Guys will pick up the education pretty quickly if it’s offered. Maybe Reps could be hanging in lounges on the weekends to grab newhires showing up for reserve trips. Worth a trip pull or two out of the increased dues money? None of the mil guys separating/ retiring I know even apply here anymore. So the few we actually get must be way out of the loop to begin with.

 

SWAPA is planning a lot of face time with line pilots between now and the close of the strike vote.

 

Need time to train the kernels and kool aid drinkers. This is the most naive pilot group I have ever seen, and been around.

 

Yup. Some of them are truly lost causes, but I've been able to turn a few around over the years.

 

Yuuuuuuup. Bingo.

 

The chances of us going on strike - at some point down the road - are nearly nil, not because Congress, though it has the ability to after the RLA process plays out, will shut us down, but because the chances the company will allow our dispute to go all the way to a strike are close to zero before they will feel compelled to settle with us.

A successful strike authorization vote improves our leverage by communicating to the company and to the NMB that we are united around the intent to go as far as we need to go to in order to obtain our contractual demands.

The company would have to drag this thing all the way through a release from mediation, 30 days of cooling off, and likely, 60 days of a PEB, all while revenue is taking a serious beating in the form of passengers booking away in order for us to get to the point of a strike.

Don’t get me wrong: it wouldn’t surprise me if our management, like the railroad executives did last September, waited until day 60 of a PEB to agree to a contract favorable to us. But…

All of this would be against the backdrop of the Christmas Meltdown of 2022. The narrative of “WTF is up with Southwest Airlines?” has already begun to develop in the public as a result of the meltdown. It would become more and more entrenched the longer management persisted in making SWA look like even more of a clown show by holding out.

And SWA would be tagged as an “Official Total Disaster” by the public if management foolishly allowed a strike to actually occur. On top of that, our “family,” “culture,” “luv,” “coheart” brand would be even more thoroughly exposed to the public as a facade.

In the extremely unlikely event we actually did end up going on strike, though, how long do you think it would last before the company capitulated? Close to $70M per day lost revenue. Of the three mainline passenger airline strikes since 1997, they lasted, from longest to shortest: 14 days, 4 days, and 24 minutes. How long would one last here? How many guys here could not go two or three weeks (likely much shorter) without pay in order to secure a contract that would pay them and their families back in spades for their short-term sacrifice?

And, BTW, none of those strikes occurred in an environment where finding replacement workers would be as difficult as today. The threat of and use of replacement workers has historically been one of the most effective strike-breaking tools for management. In that respect, SWA management is essentially neutered today.

A SAV has almost nothing to do with actually going on strike. There are many more steps that would be required to get to a strike after a SAV. But it has a lot to do with communicating a message to the the company and to the NMB that we are united around the idea of presenting the credible threat of a legal strike. That is leverage.