CatYaaak,
You may correct in that our owners may be a bit embarrassed if there is a work action at NJA. They may be embarrassed because they are going to realize that they were strung along by the company believing that we ere the highest paid professionals in the industry. They are going to start wondering where their fees were going. I certainly wouldn't want to be a salesman trying to explain why their pilots are amongst the LOWEST paid pilots in this industry.
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The thing is, you're not comparing your salaries to "your industry" (at least ASAPs isn't. see statement). You're comparing yourselves to NBAA salary averages (which is a Membership, not an "industry") garnered primarily from corporate flight departments, which taken even as a group don't qualify as an "industry" unto themselves. They each belong to whatever industry it's parent is involved in. You know, like making steel. They aren't involved in directly generating revenue, and those salaries are a reflection of incrementalism over the years by internal lobbying of av managers, longevity and merit increases, and most of all, individuals not going to work for peanuts. Some of them have "Junior" pilots employed there longer than your senior NJAers.
Your industry is limited to operations that generate revenue using the fractional model. Those are the economic rules and markets you live by. You invented it, remember? You also lobbied loudly and furiously to NOT be classified as Part 135 operations, even though many considered what you did as nothing more than selling block charter time, so therefore didn't pass the Duck Test. You obtained 135 certificates as insurance, but in the end the lobbying paid off, and everyone kept their tax breaks and depreciation, and they spent years writing 91K, delineating you from both corporate and frac.
This delineation, of course, only makes more ridiculous the whole notion of scablisting charter pilots. Hey, why don't you scablist kindergarden teachers who have owner's kids in class while you're at it..if they strike in support the owners will have to stay at home and babysit, unable to fly, thus hurting NetJets! I mean, as long as we're making up "industries" a Teaching Industry makes about as much sense, and if you're gonna use one tenuous association of cause-and-effect, you might as well use them all. Oooo...and they're probably NEA union members too...honest-to-goodness scabs if they teach little Johnny how to spell Cat while you're walking the line!
So anyway, you're paid a lot less than those Flight Options and CitationShares pilots? Now, they are definitely in your industry...your industry is tiny as far as number of companies. I thought you were paid better than any of the other fracs. Shame on me for not knowing.
But it seems to me if you're going to begin scablisting people, you might want to start with people who are actually in your industry first, rather than charter guys who aren't. I mean, that makes more sense, and undoubtedly some of your passengers will bolt over to the other fracs during your upheaval.
And am I reading this right? about you switching those ties....my, my, are you saying you'll go trotting over to what must be a "scab" operation? Do you think they're going to pay you more? If you do, why aren't you working there now?