Fix our Profession

[SellingDirt]

With all the merger Rumors, just a thought....

Wouldn't this be the prime time to fix the seniority lists. Like ALPA should have done years and years Ago. How about a National Seniority List. If your a 5th year 737 F/O your going to Make $X.00 /hr no matter where you work, 3rd year MD80 F/O etc.... Your "Date of Hire" is going to follow you the rest of your career. NO more worries on combining seniority lists and no more whipsawing our profession. If an Airline wants to do business the pilot costs are non negotiable. It is what it is.....

 

[B727Driver]

That would work if:

There was only one national carrier.
This one national carrier would be gov't owned and funded.
Boeing would be the only aircraft flown (US stuff only in the US.)
LCC's only for small markets in order to feed the motherships.
Gov't funded and mandated retirement like ATC and military.
Never entertain the idea of 'open skies'....ever.

Finally, tap your shoes and say..."there is no place like home".

Too many stuffed shirts and lawyers making too much $$$$ off our current way of doing business. Employee well-being has never been a concern for the boys at the top, only stuffing their golden parachutes at our expense.

 

[Fallingbrick]

Too many stuffed shirts and lawyers making too much $$$$ off our current way of doing business. Employee well-being has never been a concern for the boys at the top, only stuffing their golden parachutes at our expense.

No truer words spoken.

 

[VABB]

With all the merger Rumors, just a thought....

Wouldn't this be the prime time to fix the seniority lists. Like ALPA should have done years and years Ago. How about a National Seniority List. If your a 5th year 737 F/O your going to Make $X.00 /hr no matter where you work, 3rd year MD80 F/O etc.... Your "Date of Hire" is going to follow you the rest of your career. NO more worries on combining seniority lists and no more whipsawing our profession. If an Airline wants to do business the pilot costs are non negotiable. It is what it is.....

Does that also mean when one pilot group makes concessions, they all have to?

 

[samballs]

Would people quit with the national seniority list, it would not work....

 

[AAflyer]

Would people quit with the national seniority list, it would not work....

What we need to START with is a national contract!! Same pay rates for all airlines. We need ALPA, APA, NPA, SWAPA etc to meet and take the best of all contracts and form a national pilot contract. That will stop the whipshawing.

Then start a national list....

IMO,

AA

 

[maru657]

That battle was fought 50 years ago and lost. Of course things have changed but how will you ever get the pilots who have lost in mergers to agree now. A strong national pilots union would be nice. We could dictate national concerns such as absolute control of jump seats and security. IE; no more standing in line getting frisked in your uniform but the devil is in the details. Major re-organization of seniority lists addressing the problems with any particular carrier buying routes of another etc.

 

[1stCivDiv]

Work rules?

What about work rules, there is no way FedEx guys are going to trade 2 legs a day for 6...And how do you combine the trips for pay (SWA) and hourly pay, rigs, blah blah blah...And pilots that are working for profitable companies are not going to take pay cuts to make a "national average" because the majority of the passenger carriers have taken major concessions.

 

[Purpledriver]

National List? Keep dreaming. What's next? When one airline hits bad times, the senior guys from that company jump over to what ever company is making money at the time and the junior guys there end up on the street. We all work for different companies. Some are good, some not. Right now, I'm lucky....in ten years, I may not be. That's the breaks.

 

[seefive]

The ten year regional guy will be happy with a national seniority list so he gets to jump many if/when he gets on with a major.

 

[BobbyBiplane]

With all the merger Rumors, just a thought....

Wouldn't this be the prime time to fix the seniority lists. Like ALPA should have done years and years Ago. How about a National Seniority List. If your a 5th year 737 F/O your going to Make $X.00 /hr no matter where you work, 3rd year MD80 F/O etc.... Your "Date of Hire" is going to follow you the rest of your career. NO more worries on combining seniority lists and no more whipsawing our profession. If an Airline wants to do business the pilot costs are non negotiable. It is what it is.....

How about realizing that no one is going to subsidize you?

Pilots are a comodity and, as such, will continue to see their pay and working conditions shrink until the demand radically exceeds the supply. In this environment (supply exceeds demand), all you are suggesting is a short term "wall" to prevent this compensation shrinkage. With this wall in place, new airlines will find that the barrier to entry (to be read "cost of setting up an airline) is actually lower (because of the higher cost competition) with more entrants to the market. Further, as you live in America, your idea of a national cartel of pilots with all pilot services supplied by the cartel, is both unreasonable and, I believe, illegal.

You have now identified why Jack London believed in socialism, and, why he believed that both employers and unions represented scabs upon society.

Good luck.

Bob

 

[instructordude]

I'm happy now with the money I make.

 

[HelloNewman]

a national senority list sounds good on paper. Is too much of a nightmare to manage. Plus what do you do with non union startup airlines? You can't force all the new start ups to use the ALPA payscale when they aren't union. Also would a person have senority for pay purposes or bidding purposes too at other airlines. Its too much of a nightmare. Plus wouldn't the motivate the airlines even more to hire newbies so they don't have to pay them the higher scale to start? These are just a few reasons why this will never work.

 

[B1900FO]

The idea sounds great! So did socialism, and look what happened...

Like Professional Pilot Magazine does each year, ALPA could suggest an industry average for each aircraft. In fact, I think Pro Pilot's survey covers airline pilots as well.

Also, megers, bankruptcies, etc are all apart of American business no matter the industry. Unfortunately, it's the luck of the draw. US Airways pilots, who might have been initially upset with merging seniority lists will soon find that the AWA-US merger saved their jobs.

At any rate, the idea was well founded, but it just would not work...