Now, before you rush down to your local Western Union to wire congratulatory telegrams, I should clarify that this agreement does not apply to yours truly and my fellow mainline pilots, but rather to the small-jet crews at our wholly-owned regional airline. I'm quite happy for them, mind you, because they're a hardworking team. I did their job for a decade for a lot less pay, and I know they've earned everything coming to them. But the fact remains that I'm flying under a contract that expired back in 2019, and while the contract in question was designed to shower our regional brethren with monetary benevolence, the company's pocketbook has remained stubbornly closed to the likes of me. In response, our union leadership called a strike vote, which closed in November and yielded an astounding 99 percent in favor, with 96 percent participation. We should have an idea of what it all means soon. Editor's note: Before publication, the author's pilot group secured a new contract with substantial improvements. I imagine a single tear now forming in your quivering right eye. "Poor Sam," you lament forlornly, "forced to make ends meet on 2019 wages-a mere $279 per hour-reduced to participating in savage Red plots of industrial sabotage. Why, I'll bet when he finds that dream Cessna 195, he'll have to finance it!" Quite possibly, alas. But don't cry for me, dear reader-think in- stead of the newly certificated youth of America, so recently pondering which kidney they'll sell on the black market to pay for prodigious flight training loans. Now they're performing Scrooge McDuck dives into the piles of cash miraculously appearing in the bank account of every checked-out CFI with 1,475 hours and a pulse.
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