First, you're an original Airtran pilot, NOT a SWA pilot.
Thank you for pointing that out! I'm quite proud of that fact.
When you accepted employment at Airtran in early 2007, that was before their new TA, and your payrates were far lower than Virgin's.
Wrong. Our captains topped out at $154/hr compared to $150/hr for a topped out Virgin captain. And that was under a contract signed well over a decade ago. Our FO rates were lower, but again, that was a contract signed in 2000. You can't compare your rates to a contract signed 12 years ago. You have to compare your rates to contracts right now.
Where was your speech back then? You had no problem accepting employment for a carrier that paid far below its competitors.
AirTran was a union carrier engaged in Section 6 negotiations, actively fighting for much improved wages (which we achieved). In addition, even under that old contract, our CA rates exceeded the industry standard at the time, and the FO rates were about industry standard.
If you were looking at joining a union to improve your wages, then I would have no complaint with Virgin. After JetBlue started the union push, my beef with them ended. Same with Allegiant. So far, there are no indications that there is an active union push going on at Virgin. When that happens, my attitude towards Virgin will change.
As for your FO rate top out comment, it's an apples to oranges comparison. We don't have 12 year FOs. The most junior Captain was hired Feb 2009, and going more junior.
Fine, let's look the rates that your pilots are actually getting, compared to industry-standard rates:
2yr FO
Virgin - $65
JBU - $69
ATN - $70
ALA - $75
DAL - $86
SWA - $97
4yr CA
Virgin - $123
ATN - $131
JBU - $143
ALA - $157
DAL - $162
SWA - $198
You're closest to us at AirTran, but still trail by a good margin. And the only reason you're even remotely close to us is that we didn't target any money towards those years in contract negotiations, since we didn't have hardly any pilots at that longevity. Our money was targeted towards 4+ year FOs and 8+ year captains. Still, you lag even our rates that were barely adjusted from a 12 year old contract in those longevity years. That says something.
Besides, Virgin's payrates are only victims of post-9/11/recession concessionary contracts from legacies. 12 year FO rate at Virgin is 95/hr and United's bus driver is $94/hr and US Air is $85/hr. I would love to see higher rates, and with time (and profits), that can be attainable. But our colleagues have to recover from their concessionary contracts and lead the way. Virgin has received several pay increases, and should continue to do so as time goes on.
An outrageous argument. In reality, the opposite is true. The legacies only took those draconian concessions because non-union pay rates were used as the argument to the bankruptcy courts of why management needed the concessions from the legacy pilots. Managements at carriers like USAirways and United pointed directly to the JetBlue rates, which at the time, were similar to your current rates. What you conveniently fail to point out is that Virgin just got new pay rates in February, and those increases failed to keep up with the new bargaining cycle, which is indicated by the ATN, ALA, and HAL contracts, with DAL and UAL soon to follow.
And besides, all this is a moot point. Your own SWA CEO already threatened your group with his letter that now AA is in bankruptcy, SWA is the last legacy left with the highest labor costs.
The only thing our CEO mentioned in his letter was productivity improvements. Specifically, he's concerned about unplanned absences (e.g., excessive sick leave use, abnormally high OJI claims, etc.). There have been absolutely no "threats" about pay.
