In The Shadow Of Mt Hollywood

When I was racking up free flights on Southwest traveling for work in the 1990s, it was still the old Southwest with "party seating", peanut snacks, cheap drinks, and singing flight attendants. I was drawn to that sort of culture, and I followed stories about it in the Wall Street Journal, which I got for free at my door every morning at my hotel. I learned at the time that its relations with its unions were unique. The airline was succeeding as a discount carrier, and its workers were willing to work for a little less to have secure jobs. Its unions were less adversarial and more inclined to look at win-win opportunities. If Southest prospered, so did its workers. The last time I flew Southwest, maybe 15 years ago, things had changed greatly; they'd gone corporate, the peanut snacks, party seating, and singing flight attendants were long gone, while the company style had turned to talking down to the public like children. As far as I could tell, though, the unions h...