Fix our Profession

[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...