Starting pay of $100 for First Officers at Alaskan Airlines (and you don't have to live in Alaska)... 

I'm telling you: it's worth the jump.  AVERAGE Captain's pay over $300K.  That's absolutely INSANE.

https://www.q13fox.com/news/alaska-airlines-cancels-more-than-120-flights-as-pilots-picket

You've just spelled out very clearly the difference between helicopter pilots and airline pilots: Airline pilots have self-respect; helicopter pilots have none.  Airline pilots have respect for each other (i.e. won't cross a picket line); helicopter pilots have no respect for anything or anyone.  "Cross a picket line?  Sure! Why not! It's $100k to start!"  This is why we sometimes hear of helo pilots who "tried" the airlines and hated it and came back. It's really because they didn't fit in with a higher class of pilots - pilots who look out not only for themselves, but for each other too.  Just stay in your lane, helo pilot!

how this guy puts down the pilots in the RW industry, but yet the airlines are aggressively recruiting from the RW ranks.  It's likely he failed miserably as a helicopter pilot and is on the precipice at the airlines as well. 
Hey, you can always fly medical lab stuff.  You'd be alone, at night with no one to see your real level of performance. 

It's unfortunate that we work in an industry where people will crawl over other people for what is, by design, a menial job.

Should the union prevail, a better deal means better hours, which, in turn means more hiring. Almost a win-win. Everyone's happy but the puppet masters.

Menial Job= Airline pilot. Direct to, enter enter.

some dumb thinks airliners have 430's

'It's unfortunate that we work in an industry where people will crawl over other people for what is, by design, a menial job."

You are what you do.

If you see yourself as just one of the herd, you will be so. You'll work whatever field the 'massa' puts you in and take whatever he he deigns to give. 

I will bet that you see yourself as comptitive in a field of equals dealing with equals. That's wrong.

What does your contract say? Oh, you don't have one? You are paid whatever your employer feela like paying you on payday. There is no 'contract' for an at will employee. By that definition, each and every pay period is whatever 'the man' says it is. 

There can come a time that 'the man' won't pay or won't pay as expected. Yes, you can move on and find another situation, it won't make a difference long term. Tht 'contract' is entirely one sided except that you drag all your competitors down to the level you just left.

Or maybe it won't and job will change to a nore favorable term after you leave. I think that's a pyrhic victory, you lose for someone else's gain  You're not dealing from a situation of eqality, you have no documented contract, everybody in the field loses every time that happens.

If everybody loses because 'everybody' has no real negotiating power, perhaps 'everybody' can win if they unite to negotiate.  Example: when Rocky pilots organized all the pilots in my market profited whether they were RMH or not their compensation was adjusted to compete. In the end, AMC, with union pilots bought Rocky before the company expanded in my market, Yes, jobs were lost locally. Then the company expanded the number of bases and pilot jobs in the state.

There are weaknesses in organizing contracts, Everybody, or at least the majority of the pilots support the contract and then accept the situation created and rekax, often failing to support other members in their disputes, expecting the 'the union' will take care of everything. The company will the attack the members one by one, especially anybody active in the organizing effort. They will single them out, punish them, fire them for common compromises everbody makes.

Do you have contract interpretation expertise? The company will and they'll write the contract to the employer's favor.

Do you know federal and your state's  labor law, precedents? The company will have expert advice, you won't and you, everybody else will pay for that. The union levels that up a bit, but only a bit.

that is impossible in the rotary wing union world simply because we not only answer to a union and a company but also, in many many cases, a hospital management which can have us gone in a flash.

Plus we are totally isolated from one another due to so many bases.  Airlines have very few domiciles/bases which creates easily identifying behavior of those who do not honor pickets.

Unions in the helicopter industry are not as useful as in the airlines, needless to say.

No doubt agree the jump is worth it. However the 300k number includes benefits/retirement, it's a misleading number intentionally. This number is an Alaska HR number pushed out to try and attempt to paint captains as rich, in order to paint them as greedy if/when they strike. Ask a captain if his ANNUAL SALARY is 300k and he will laugh at you. The airlines once again made their own bed in not preparing for the shortgages. 

Alaska airlines is more worried about hiring anyone with the right skin color, sexual orientation, and gender than hiring qualified experienced pilots. 

how do you do that bro. you can't pay tons of pilots to sit around until things pick up and you never know when that's going to be. you know nothing about alaska air.

but striking after three years of talks is not abnormal historically.  Striking can backfire these days.  Lot of variables and quiet uncertainties.

and airlines must be very competitive these days.  For those who are not fully in the know airline pay is going up, waaaaay up.  Do extra rigs/shifts and pay for those hours can double or even triple.  Total compensation really adds up at that rate.  

There are pilots who do their 1000 hours year after year and make more money than a helicopter pilot can imagine.  Do the research, you'll find what I'm mentioning.

From a compensation perspective going to the airlines is a total non-brained.  Gives time off such that proficiency can easily be maintained in all sorts of flying machines, thus having a fun life and career.

Is what it is!