EagleRJ said:
If I interviewed at ASA in 1998, and offered to pay $8000 instead of $6000, and was offered the job, how would you think the pilot who was shown the door would have felt?
Well for one thing, ASA's PFT setup was a contract, not an auction. I'm not sure this is a valid comparison.
You say that a scab is someone who is willing to take a job someone else already had, but isn't taking a job someone else is better qualified for the very same thing?
I have a problem with this line of reasoning. If nobody had that job already, if no one was
displaced, then the epithet "scab" does not apply. If somebody gets a job originally because they had an advantage somebody else didn't have, that doesn't make them a scab. There are a lot of really good pilots out there without college degrees. Does that mean they've been cheated by every pilot who went to college? If my flight school charges less for instruction than yours does, am I cheating? If my father taught me how to fly, is that cheating? What about the military guys? Did they cheat?
While I was instructing, I knew a lot of guys who took a dim view of PFT. Almost without exception, they made the same speech: "I refuse to work for _____ because PFT goes against my principles...and I don't have the money." Put yourself in my shoes, knowing what we know now: I could have applied at ASA and been hired, or waited to get hired elsewhere, and be furloughed after 9/11. What would you do?
My father, an EAL striker who
hates scabs, told me to "grab the seniority number and run." Is that cheating? Maybe. Maybe he was just being realistic. But I don't have any aps out at any majors, nor am I likely to anytime soon, so don't mind me. I'm not in your way.
More power to them- I hope they have long rewarding careers.
Don't lie!
The pilot community has no question, though, about where their loyalties lie.
Really? Tell me where my loyalties lie. When I flew my first line trip, I didn't notice your name stenciled on the back of my seat. Nobody was entitled to my job any more than I was. No, I didn't have as much time as you apparently did in '98. But I'll bet our job preformance was and is pretty similar.
You really haven't mentioned, Typhoon...did you PFT? Are you looking for justification?
I'm sorry, I thought I made it clear earlier. Yes, PFT was still going on at ASA when I got hired. Justification? No, I've never felt I needed that. To tell you the truth, before I joined this webboard, I had no idea there was so much hatred, jealousy, and animosity about this issue.
But if SWA does gain financially from its hiring practices, and if there are people out there who want to work there but can't afford it, then I don't want to hear any more flak about PFT.