Free market this!
hire_me said:
Boo - right on!
Unions have a time and a place to stand firm. But any move by labor to prevent economically prudent competitiveness by their employer is shortsighted. In the end the free economy will prevail. Those that want to be a part of it will have to adjust. Those whom fight it will lose.
HM- I don't think you read my post the way I meant it to be interpreted exactly. I'm a fan of using the union to subvert the free market, not for the free market to slowly chip at the compensation scale until we reach a market-based contract. I'd advocate that you not get hired at all until all furloughed union members have been offered a job. It's what's best for the industry, even if it sets you back 5 years; you are a sacraficial lamb to the greater good.
See, many pilots who have yet to work for a 121-type airline are willing to fly for a wage that cannot support them for the short term, believing that, "In a couple of years we'll all be moving up."
Yeah, we will, but not b/c of the free market! If we were to allow the free market to reign supreme, the wage of a 777 driver would go to an even lower level that that of a Beech 1900. If I were to offer you $18,000 a year to fly the 1900 or 17.5 to fly the 777, you'd take the 17.5, right, b/c you'd get a 777. But part of the reason you want the 777 is what comes with it (the respect and high pay, but only b/c those pilots busted their ba!!s for 30 years to get there and earned the position).
See, b/c pilots are compensated well (we are, relative to many other professions, even computer programers
) and the attributes that make a good pilot often are similar to those of a socially strong individual, there is a mistique to being a pilot. Normally, if you were to have to devote 10 years of your life to job training (the military route) or pay 30,000 + and learn on the job, moving up as you go (the civilian route), the market would deem your skill set and experience to be worthy of a premium salary. Now, over the long run, if we were to let the market control alone, pilots would become highly paid. But there would first have to be a
huge correction downward as all of those pilots currently willing to work for less would pressure the wage downward until it reached a level that people were no longer willing to become pilots at, given the costs to attain the skill set needed. I'd guess this would be around $13,000 a year (I have no factual basis for this # other than my own opinion). This would take at least 30 years, probably more! Those of us who currently work in the field cannot afford to sacrafice our entire career (30 years + wipes out every single one of us) just for a free-market experiment.
That is why lowering the compensation package is such a big issue for us (well, some of us know this, most just jump on the band wagon b/c they know that THAT guy knows what's best for them). It's alot easier to lower the compensation then it is to raise it up. The US$ slowly loses value over time. If we allow concessions in the down times (easy to do) then we have to fight tooth-and-nail to get them back in the good times (manamgent tells us that's
why it's the good times, b/c our wages aren't pulling the company under. Don't believe it!). End result, by the time we get our wages back to where they used to be, the economy goes back into the crapper and we start the concessions again. So, now things cost more, but we only got back to the level we were at 5 years ago, and we slowly devalue ourselves over time. Yes, all this b/c of some small concessions made in a downturn. Downturns happen after ups, so, by not getting a raise, we ARE conceeding in the downturns. Concessions on top of this built-in 'inflationary concession' will kill us.
We can't afford concessions, and, right now, we can't afford to lose mainliners and replace them with regionals. Mainliners may be old and stogey, but they have the wisdom and patience of their experience, experience that has taught them to always ask for a little more, and to not freak when things don't go the way they wanted. That's why they're paid more. Anyone with some RJ time could fly a 74 or 77 without breaking a sweat, and though the landing might be a bit rough (74's flare pretty high!), the plane will get put on the runway at its destination. It's not flying skill anymore at that level, it's the payoff for patience and experience. To allow the payoff to disappear to 'market forces' is not something we can allow to happen in our lifetime.
Keeping new hires out of the mix and getting the furloughs back is for the good of all pilots, as is eliminating the idea that there are 2 different groups of pilots. We are all pretty much skilled enough to fly anything out there (do you really think a $50K RJ Captain is 1/6th the pilot of a $300K DL Captain?), but we cannot allow the market to reflect this idea. Please do everything in your power to achieve small gains. Though it will benefit the industry as a whole, it will benefit YOU immediately. You deserve a raise if you work at a regional, and no pilot deserves a pay cut.
I'll get off my long-winded high horse now. Sorry.
-Boo!
