A federal judge has rejected a challenge to Southwest Airlines' vaccine mandate, but the airline still won't allow pilots to get the required flu vaccine. What does that mean for the future of the airline and the pilots union? On today's show, Glenn and Sean talk to Captain Casey Murray, the President of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association, about that and much more.
00:01:43.700Well, we were disappointed as well, but more so disappointed in Southwest.
00:01:49.800We, you know, we were forced to reach out to the federal court system to force Southwest to come and talk to us about numerous items.
00:02:00.920We had actually filed in August a status quo lawsuit over several issues that the company wasn't bargaining with us on, coming to the table and meeting and discussing.
00:02:12.740And then we filed a TRO when they announced the mandate to stop that.
00:02:19.180But again, to come and sit down and let's talk about the issues surrounding it.
00:02:45.180We've seen some initial responses from them that pilots could apply for exemptions.
00:02:54.460And if they were granted, some of them would be given leave with no pay.
00:03:02.100So, so again, and they've kind of backed off on that now, but we still don't have anything in writing and it's constantly changing.
00:03:11.540They came out with a, a, and the judge spoke to this.
00:03:15.880They came out and said, Hey, we will pay the sick time.
00:03:19.080We will pay you for, for getting the vaccine.
00:03:23.120But that has changed six times since that announcement came out.
00:03:28.860And so we have nothing in writing and, and, and, and we have Gary Kelly's word who, by the way, is, is going to be stepping down in February.
00:03:37.540So he's the one who said no one will be fired, but, but what happens in March and April?
00:03:44.840If you, if you can't work because you haven't gotten the vaccine, you know, there's something that I find amazing that happens with the teachers unions in New York city.
00:03:55.880If you are deemed a pedophile, they can't fire you.
00:04:00.700So they just put you in a room with other pedophile teachers and you just sit there and you do nothing every day, but you're getting paid.
00:04:08.640I mean, if you're a pedophile, I guess that's a pretty good gig for you.
00:04:13.840But if you're a pilot, nobody wants to sit around in a room and do nothing.
00:04:22.820And again, we haven't been able to sit down and have discussions with him, with them.
00:04:26.960You know, we're the, the judge ruled and, and, and that is what it is.
00:04:32.520And, and, and we're looking at our steps now moving forward.
00:04:35.560But, but again, all we've asked for this whole time is for Southwest to, to stop these unilateral decisions, these unilateral, you know, policies without sitting down there.
00:04:48.380They're, they're marching all over our, our contract.
00:04:51.200And I'm really, you know, concerned with the ruling and how Southwest is, is really undermining what the RLA actually stands for, the Railroad Labor Act.
00:05:01.420Well, I would encourage anybody that, well, I mean, I don't know what you do now.
00:05:07.060I was going to say, I encourage anybody who has the money.
00:05:11.580And a lot of people don't have the money to fly, especially some of the prices are outrageous now.
00:05:16.640Uh, but if you have the money, don't fly on Southwest, um, because they, at least, I guess, haven't really made the decision officially yet.
00:05:24.900Um, I, I have to tell you, um, Casey, I'm, I'm really concerned.
00:05:28.920This vaccine mandate, uh, goes into full effect across the nation on November 22nd.
00:05:35.760And we have 60% of, uh, of, uh, DHS or what are the TSA that hasn't been vaccinated yet.
00:05:44.440Now that's a, that number is a couple of weeks old, so it might be closer to 40% now, but you're going to, you're running out of time.
00:05:51.420And when that goes into effect three days before Thanksgiving, I think these airports are going to be nightmares.
00:06:01.540Um, yeah, let me go back to where you said, don't fly Southwest.
00:06:06.140I, uh, I, you know, we're definitely not there.
00:06:09.020Southwest is, is relying on, on, on all of the frontline employees and, and they're doing a great job.
00:06:15.040Everybody, our pilots, the most productive out there, our pilots will get our passengers to where they need to go.
00:06:20.780Um, but, but I am disappointed in Southwest.
00:06:24.020And I do think that moving forward, a lot of what the, the, the lawsuit, not just, um, on the mandate front, but, but the lawsuit was, was to, to kind of streamline and, and get us talking and, and make sure that a lot of the issues we're seeing with Southwest operationally get corrected.
00:06:44.280Um, so I have a lot of confidence in, in, in the frontline employees, um, getting our passengers to where they need to be, but it's, it's, it's critical for Southwest to, to make some changes and to correct a lot and make sure that, that what happened over, over October 8th, that meltdown, the meltdown over the entire summer, uh, doesn't occur again.
00:07:06.900Yeah. Um, can you respond to the, uh, TSA thing? Uh, you, you have confidence that Thanksgiving's not going to be an absolute nightmare?
00:07:16.060Um, Thanksgiving is going to be a challenge, uh, talking about specifically to TSA, um, and a, a lot of what's going on with vaccinations and mandates.
00:07:27.560We, um, you know, that's, that's part of our issue is, is, is, uh, Biden has come down and made this pronouncement that is affecting us.
00:07:37.620Uh, but it's, it's not affecting everyone. And, and, and none of the results that they're looking for are uniform.
00:07:46.340And so, um, what is going to happen? That's a big question. Um, um, Southwest is, is preparing for, for, um, Thanksgiving and the holidays.
00:07:57.540And, um, and like I said, our, our employees, just like this summer, when we weren't really given the tools to, to do what we needed to do, uh, came through admirably.
00:08:07.540And, and we will, again, all the employees of Southwest, you know, really disappointed in management.
00:08:12.880Casey, um, I think everybody knows the spirit of Southwest and the employees and you guys are, you guys do a great job.
00:08:18.640You really do. Um, but people are really getting sick of this. Our, I mean, our doctors are being fired.
00:08:24.720Our policemen are being fired. Our firefighters are being fired. Now, you know, the people who make our lives, uh, you know, uh, really kind of easy, not the TSA, but the airlines being able to go and see our family and go travel.
00:08:40.860And now that's, you guys are being fired for it. America is right at the edge of saying enough is enough.
00:08:47.380And, uh, it would be certainly great to see somebody like Southwest airlines stand up and say, Hey, you know what?
00:08:54.740We are the airline of the little people and we do care about the little people and we don't look at our employees like little people.
00:09:03.040And we don't look down on our, uh, on our, uh, our, uh, ticket buyers as little people either.
00:09:09.260We're part of you. We serve the people.
00:09:13.220And, uh, I just, I, there's a huge market for that.
00:09:16.840If anybody has the fricking balls to do it, and I would hope that Southwest would, uh, I hope Southwest would get that message and hear it.
00:10:10.140I'll stall here for a bit, but you got to get some duct tape because you got to wrap it around your head because your head's going to explode.
00:10:15.000And, uh, when it does, it's not going to, the duct tape won't stop your head from exploding.
00:10:20.220You just have to wrap your head tightly in it.
00:10:22.380Uh, and then at least you'll have all the pieces when you get to the, you know, emergency room and they look at you and go, Oh, have you been vaccinated?
00:10:33.120They're like, I know, but have you been vaccinated?
00:10:35.500Anyway, after that argument, they'll have all the pieces to put your head back together.
00:10:39.980So grab the duct tape because here we go.
00:10:42.520Last year, current, uh, students and alumni of the coastal Carolina university department of theater gathered together to fight racial injustice.
00:10:52.800And they created a list of demands for the faculty and the administrators.
00:10:58.260I love people who have a list of demands.
00:11:01.220According to the students website, um, and you can see it at CC youth theater.com.
00:11:07.920Here are just a few of the things they demanded extensive and reoccurring diversity, equity, and inclusion training for faculty and staff with disciplinary consequences.
00:11:18.820If not upheld, I love you already as a student department wide ban on phrases like colorblind casting.
00:11:29.540Oh, a requirement to hire two people of color faculty or staff members by 2025 and a public apology to all people of color students for all of the inequity, inequity, inequity and trauma that they have experienced.
00:11:55.560The students have now been running the show and now these same theater students are refusing to go to class until our next guest, Professor Steve Ernest is fired.
00:12:21.620A guest artist at the university met with two students after a class.
00:12:27.380One student said she felt so isolated as a person of color and wanted to get no to get to know more non-white students.
00:12:34.540The guest artist suggested, well, you might want to make a group of non-white students that you can get together and you can talk about it.
00:12:40.960So they proceeded together to write down the names of non-white students in the theater department on the board while they brainstormed ideas.
00:12:49.380Well, they forgot to erase the board after they left and the next class of actors entered the room.
00:12:56.980Now, when I say actors, what I mean at primed revolutionaries, really, they saw the list and they were outraged.
00:13:04.280They staged a protest, refusing to go to class to show their disgust.
00:13:08.740There is a list of all of the minorities, all of the people of color in the theater department on the board.
00:13:17.480Now, you may have noticed that our next guest hasn't even entered the story yet.
00:13:21.040So when it comes to light that it was all a misunderstanding, the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee wrote to the theater department students to apologize to them for how they may have been affected by this incident.
00:13:33.920Again, the incident being that students' names had been written on a board.
00:13:38.340So now Mr. Steve Ernest comes in and he replied to the email from the committee saying, sorry, but I don't think this is a big deal.
00:13:47.680Well, I'm really sad that people get their feelings hurt so easily and they're going into theater.
00:14:18.500He joins us now, along with the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and their Faculty Legal Defense Fund to push back against the university who seems to be working towards his termination.
00:15:49.620I mean, you know, we've been doing this for two decades now.
00:15:54.780You know, colorblind casting and casting of people, you know, of color in, you know, nontraditional roles in Shakespeare has just been, it's been very common in the theater.
00:16:06.240You know, I came from California to South Carolina at a school where I taught 30% white people.
00:16:13.400You know, colorblind casting was just, we didn't really even factor that ever into the situation.
00:16:19.040You know, I mean, and it is funny because, you know, we've been doing this for two decades.
00:16:25.600Orson Welles did it with Shakespeare in the 1920s or early 1930s where it was an all-black cast of Othello except for him.
00:16:37.180And now he gets hammered because he put blackface on to play that.
00:18:04.720And not only, I've been fortunate enough not only to meet FIRE, but also Counterweight, which is another organization like this that protects free speech, though more on an international level.
00:18:20.000This is happening in countries all around the world now at institutions of higher education, where the mob mentality is demonstrating against this faculty member or that for whatever type of language that they've used and hurt feelings and this kind of a thing.
00:18:37.780So, you know, it's something that I'm really intent on stepping out there and slowing down and getting people just to come back to reason.
00:18:47.700So, but if you can't do it there, I mean, there's I really believe, Steve, there has to be almost a parallel economy because things are going so crazy now that I don't know where to send my kids to college.
00:19:04.460You know, I'd rather have them not go to college and just find different ways to teach them the things they need to know, because it's all seemingly almost all indoctrination.
00:19:16.860It has nothing to do with higher education.
00:19:21.340And having been in it for 30 years, I can say that there has certainly been a move in that direction.
00:19:28.080You know, and a lot of people feel just the same way that you do, that these are just, you know, liberal training boot camps now with very little to do with intense subject subject of the study matter or to learn discipline.
00:19:45.060And other things like this that that that we learned, you know, back in the day.
00:19:51.300Steve, I can't tell you my my professor.
00:19:57.040I was in high school and we had a doctor of theater who taught us.
00:20:02.420I was I went to an art school and he was amazing.
00:20:07.900He changed he changed my life and and opened me up to so many things.
00:20:12.840I happen to know one of your students because I just hired her.
00:20:17.140I think she's absolutely brilliant and she raves about you.
00:20:20.300And I would love to know if if you don't get this job back, you know, if there's anybody who's looking for a theater professor, I'd love to be able to pass it on because my daughter wants to be in theater.
00:20:35.840Um, and luckily I happen to know some really good people that, uh, you know, were very successful in in that, uh, arena that are not part of this liberal cabal.
00:20:50.440And so she's learning from those people.
00:20:53.300But when she goes to college, I know what she's going to face, especially in theater.
00:21:21.460And, uh, if you, if you don't go back, I'd love to help you find a job.
00:21:26.020That would be, you know, and I think a lot of this maybe have to do with a, what I call pandemic frustration.
00:21:32.560Some people out in California have, have asked me if, if this is not part of that, uh, who are in theater, who are professors of theater in California, because the world of theater has been literally shut down for two years.
00:21:44.280You know, we've been hit hard as, as any industry.
00:21:47.140And so there's been a lot of frustration out there and, and just an unusual amount of hatred going on just because of, of what, what the future holds out there.
00:21:58.260I would hate to be a student at this time in the world because they're being told the lies that you'll never make it, uh, that, uh, the world is going to, you know, burn itself out in 20 years.
00:22:11.120I mean, the, the, it is such a bleak picture, uh, that the, I think the lies that are being told about America and, and the globe, I w I would hate to be a student now.
00:22:35.440Uh, theater professor at coastal Carolina university facing termination over racism charges because he said, who's going to boo boo, except he said it better than that.
00:22:51.400This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:22:53.840One of my favorite people, she kind of feels like a sister of mine, uh, Bridget Phetasy, host of walk-ins welcome the podcast.
00:23:14.260And, uh, and she's a fantastic writer.
00:23:18.120She used to be, you would consider yourself very, very liberal progressive in the past.