Originally Posted by
drooley
I believe the 'stay at home order' is getting to me. Every time I read the title of this thread, I read it as unicorns, rather than unions. Several times now.
Unicorns worry Southwest Airlines could reject bailout and trim workforce. 
Haha - some Southwest employees are indeed "unicorns" - I'm thinking of ramp agents at some of the smaller stations (CRP, HRL, etc.) who are paid more than $30 per hour to work only a few flights a day. Once an agent hits 11 years of seniority, they are at the top level of pay, and as Southwest has slowed the opening of new stations, more and more of their employees are topped out. The TWU 555 contract allows Southwest to outsource the ramp only at stations opened after 2009 that have less than 12 flights per day (mainly the legacy AirTran stations such as GRR & RIC).
I'm not saying this is right or wrong - certainly, if you pay your workers well, they're more likely to stay on the job for a long time and be satisfied with the company - but many of the lower-skilled workers at Southwest would have a hard time finding another job paying anywhere close to $30 per hour if Southwest were to ever file Chapter 11 and renegotiate the union contracts. Delta, United, and even American have far looser contracts when it comes to outsourcing.