Could this help a SLI? NW/DL

[waveflyer]

ICB- no -a national seniority list is NOT a bad idea. You just don't follow your logic all the way to it's end. What i'm saying is that if we can divide up seniority lists a thousand different ways and make pilots start all over at the bottom 4, 5 and 6 or more times in their career - as if they are a kid out of college! - then our seniority is working against us and it's value is less and less. When you think of the negatives of a NSL you combine our current system and your assumptions of what a NSL would be.

Seniority in THIS environment is worthless. It is the single biggest determinant in our career and it's being given away through scope and compromised through mergers and liquidations. It screws up our whole career b/c management's nationwide know we'd give up our left nut to keep whatever seniority we have.

A combined seniority list is the solution. Well it's the unionized solution. The other is the guild solution in which we get rid of the concept and let the "free for all" happen. But the in-between solution has to go away.

 

[IronCityBlue]

ICB- no -a national seniority list is NOT a bad idea. You just don't follow your logic all the way to it's end. What i'm saying is that if we can divide up seniority lists a thousand different ways and make pilots start all over at the bottom 4, 5 and 6 or more times in their career - as if they are a kid out of college! - then our seniority is working against us and it's value is less and less. When you think of the negatives of a NSL you combine our current system and your assumptions of what a NSL would be.

Seniority in THIS environment is worthless. It is the single biggest determinant in our career and it's being given away through scope and compromised through mergers and liquidations. It screws up our whole career b/c management's nationwide know we'd give up our left nut to keep whatever seniority we have.

A combined seniority list is the solution. Well it's the unionized solution. The other is the guild solution in which we get rid of the concept and let the "free for all" happen. But the in-between solution has to go away.

I see some of your points, and I agree that our present system severely penalizes job hopping, and I further acknowledge that it is detrimental to our careers. But I see no practical way for a NSL to ever happen. It would just be too painful short and medium term to ever get enough support.

What I think we should work towards instead is bringing up the bottom wages of the industry. No more new hire (semi-PFT) B scale, etc. When you see legacy pay scales going from 25-31/hr all the way up to almost 200/hr that needs to be fixed. If we brought up junior pilot pay to respectable levels we would have much of the benefits of a NSL without any of the pitfalls.

Pilots would be able to start over, be it by choice or necessity, and while they would many times have to take a pay cut in doing so, there would be no 200,000----->18,000 dollar career hits.

First year pay at any major should be 80K, minimum, and 6 figures at year 2 or 3. Yes that would require less at the top end in most cases. But it would be better off for all pilots, junior and senior, to narrow the massive disparity in hourly pay rates because when a company liquidates, the most senior is right behind the most junior at the next job fair.

I also like the idea of a guild type scale that sets min pay, as well as some work rules, for both basic QOL as well as safety. United's "9 hours behind the door" min rest rule should be an FAR, but until it is, it needs to be in EVERY contract, no excuses. "Fly to the FAR's" is not enough and everyone knows it. We need to collectively set a realistic floor for work rules as well as pay. After a reasonable induction period of a few years, any pilot group working for less than scale would be ineligible for hire at any scale carrier. That way everyone would have a strong incentive to at least demand industry minimum wage.

All industry new hires would have to apply and pass appropriate testing to join, while all with 121, 135 or mil experience would automatically be in, provided they met the scale requirements in their contracts. This would give us leverage to control supply just like the AMA does, only we would be doing it with a financial and career incentive stick rather than a legal one. Any pilot or airline would be free to do their own thing, but if they did they would be married to a cut rate airline.

And scope needs to be reversed in the most urgent possible way, no matter how much it costs. The pilots at one end lose because they furlough thousands of pilots for many painful years, while new hires out of flight school go right into bigger and bigger jets and upgrade in 2 years. Pilots at the other end lose because, never "owning" their flying, it is always up for grabs to the lowest bidder. In the meantime, legacy profits are diverted to fund the next generation of multibillion dollar start ups (watch SKYW or Republic in 5 to 10 years, or less).

There is no practical or possible way to completely insulate every pilot in the industry from the inevitable hardships of liquidations or job hopping. But the damage can be mitigated if we stick together and work to fix some of our core issues. That's a big if, but its possible.