I’ve calmed down some , so let me start off by apologizing to our FA’s and pilots …i get carried away sometimes .sorry .
To those of you stuck in the lower half of your unions pay scale , I want to say that I truly understand what your going through , I used to be an AWA baggage handler , and for those of you who don’t know, our play scale was just PATHETIC … it was a fear of mine that we’d be trapped in our shitty west contract for YEARS , and in these times with gas and food rising , nothing caused me more anxiety , it was getting really hard toward the end to make ends meet .. I KNOW how hard this company bargains , we had to fight day in and day out against our own company , here in the west we had to fight against hopelessness as well . If our recent contract hadn’t passed I know many co-workers who were simply going to quit and move on , some of them with years of seniority ..
I know the psychological toll that working in the lesser contract takes on a person , I can’t imagine what working under the higher contract for the east must feel like . I bet a lot of the workers in the higher contract feel like their being blackmailed or extorted by having the company keep insisting on giving their union wage parity yet doing very little for those in the higher contract ..
I’m also sad because I feel for our pilots and FA’s …. as each day passes I believe that your barging position worsens and it’s through no fault of your own . I was adamant when we had discussion on here amounst ourselves that we take what we could get now before things got worse , now I see them getting worse . Even after having done the sensible thing many on the east are still trapped in the defeated mindset .. I suppose when you have a higher standard of living, life is for these people like it was for myself …
Some on here will accuse me of flip flopping , I just happen to have what I would call an expanded view of the times … as our economy worsens it’s becoming more and more evident to me that we all need to do the very best to keep our customers coming back so we can stay in business .. For people who feel trapped in a BK contract it doesn’t help one IOTA for me to say “smile at the pax and be nice “ because how can you feel like going the extra mile when you feel like this company has been squatting on you for years .. I hope those living in the depressed realm will come to see that as bad as things are , as sad and depressed as each day is , it’s still better to have this lousy job than another somewhere else doing something far less fulfilling .
I can only hope that those of you out there who deal with the public will realize in time that our company’s public image rests on your shoulders and that in order for us to continue to win people over , the majority of that work will fall on your shoulders . It’s not fair and it’s not right , but all I can say is I’ll try to do my own personal best to please the customers so that when your having a bad day the entire weight won’t be on you .