The staffing fallacy

I want to share my views with you on the much touted logic that "if we work less, management will need to hire more pilots" and why this is demonstrably untrue.
This logic has given rise to terrible divisiveness within our ranks, people's names being brandished, almost as scabs, if they accepted a junior manning assignment. The action of our union engaging in non voted side letters preventing us from making money.  For instance, the original TED contract had no pay cap. Your union closeted a little side letter that turned the 95-max flight hrs/month onto 95 max pay hrs/month. Arguable as inconsequential until split IDs with deadheads start showing up and you are prevented by your union from capitalizing on soft time trips that would have brought your pay over 95 but kept the flight time below that number. All done in the spirit of egalitarianism I suppose. Or that's what they would have you believe. Pay caps are reduced further when our pilots are on the street, supposedly to force management into bringing them back sooner than they otherwise would. Work rules negotiated that were deliberately inefficient for the same reason. It's the "Create Busy Work" scenario.
Work less=Management must hire more.
But this not true.
Basically, if we work less, we drive the cost per hour of our services up. We make ourselves more expensive. Bean counters take one look at an increasing expense and do what they are programmed to do and reduce the expense. They cut flying. They do not increase the expense more by adding to the payroll. To expect this behaviour presupposes that the block hours are constant, and were that true, popular (ALPAs) logic would indeed follow. Management would have ot hire more pilots.
It is not true. They don't.
Block hours are variable. Projections get changed on a monthly basis based on market conditions. So block hours can be cut at the management's behest. Sounds counter intuitive but that is largely because the brainwashing of the last 20 years  has served to curtail critical thinking to a large extent. It's politically sellable. Think about it: In order to be a supporter, and one of the team, all you have to do is.....nothing. Unfortunately what you do  by engaging in this obfuscation is actually counter productive, having an effect opposite to the one intended.
A few examples:
Blue Skies agreement:  Pilot costs reduced>>>block hours subsequently increase
Beginning of ESOP: Pilot costs reduced>>>> block hour flying increases dramatically
Beginning of Shuttle contract: Pilot costs reduced>>>>block hours increase
End of Shuttle contract: Pilot costs increased>>>>block hours decrease
End of ESOP/Contract 2000: Pilot costs increased>>>> block hours decrease
LCC contract: Pilot costs reduced>>>>block hours increase

These are six instances where the correlation is documented. Once or twice could be a coincidence. Six, to me, is proof.
Just think of this next time you engage in a practise that drives up costs. Of any kind. (For the record...I do NOT believe in a Pollyanna world where "we can save the company". I DO believe we can destroy it if we try hard enough. I DO believe you can incentivize management to ousource if you become too expensive, and I DO believe you can incentivize management to increase the flying on the property by being more efficient)
I do not believe you are helping yourselves in acting out a flawed strategy. It is particularly apparent to management bean counters when the direct employee cost is the one on the table, instantly visible, and ripe for surgery.
Continental's pilots, even though they get paid considerably more than we do, are cheaper for management to operate than us because of their greater flexibility and less "QOL" work rules in their contract. The expansion in the merged company is being seen almost exclusively on the Continental side.
They are hiring
We have 1400+ on furlough.
Any questions?