so what is the better system, ABC company needsa 727 Capt, so they find one current and qualified just laid off by XYZ, he cheap to hire, don't have to waste any company money on training any of my 727 F/O's. Is that a better system than the senority system? Remember pilots are skilled workers by dept of labor definition, not knowledge workers.
We've had that discussion before but, for the sake of the edification of newcomers, the Dept of Labor did that as a POLITICAL move for both the major airlines AND the USPS lawsuit that was brought by the pilots in the USPS system (I was one of them at the time) that we weren't being given yearly raises commensurate with our position.
Every pilot here doesn't buy it... except for you I think. We all know better. You can train a monkey to fly the airplane, but you can't train the monkey to have the KNOWLEDGE of aerodynamics, aircraft performance, weather prediction, combined human factors that take several "borderline" issues and, when combined, make a particular flight a no-go item in the course of safety, or train the monkey to train another monkey.
It just doesn't pass the "smell" test, buddy.
And I've actually BEEN a Direct-Entry CA three times now, working on a 4th, so you're asking the wrong guy. Yes, OF COURSE, I think it's wrong to skip an F/O who is otherwise qualified to be the Captain at that point.
However, that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about this profession should be compensated by a matrix made up of aircraft size / passenger or cargo load / and time in profession. That way, when you left your job for whatever reason, the new employer would be REQUIRED to pay you a base salary commensurate with your experience.
There should also be a NATIONAL seniority list that would REQUIRE a company to hire other company's furloughed pilots as well as upgrade internal qualified candidates before they hired more junior new-hires off the street.
There's a way to make it work, but it's going to take a LOT of work to do so. If you're too lazy to do that work, just say so, man...
Seriously though, you have to admit there's a problem with our current system. It was NEVER intended to watch companies rake in BILLIONS, disseminate the profits among the robber-baron CEO's, then have nothing when times get lean and take it out on the employees.
Until we fix the system to either put a cap on senior management salaries and bonuses, OR require them to share the money EQUALLY among employees should they get a payout, OR figure out a way to protect the employees from bankruptcy-imposed wage cuts and/or furloughs as a result of this industry cycle, this WILL continue.
To think we're not going to be in another down-turn in 5-7 years is naive, at best. How will we protect ourselves? Be part of the solution, don't just tell me WHY something won't work or that it just "has always been that way".
