WSJ: Deregulation finally taking hold after 25 years

[shon7]

General Lee wrote: "The seniority system is the only fair way to conduct business, and the way to keep good employees around. Not everyone can pass a Captain upgrade..."

Care to elaborate why or how the seniority system is the only way to go? And how do you address the problem of startups who will always have lower costs because of the seniority system. And let me get this -- you are arguing that pilots should NOT be promoted on MERIT because in your view only "brown-nosing" helps recognize the meritorious!

The senior pilots at any airline will always defend the seniority system -- not for any greater good but because of the attitude "well we have put in XX years at the airline and reached seniority number X so we shouldn't compromise/adjust now." Well the UAL and US Airways pilots still retain their seniority -- however the companies might not be around in the future. Same might hold true for DAL. The result of this rigid seniority system is (directy or indirectly): growth of the LCC's and startupcarriers, outsourcing of mainline flying to regionals (management WILL always find a way to cut costs), your payscales at the regionals, the state of the industry in general, erosion of benefits. But hey -- as long as a select group of pilots retain the seniority that shouldn't matter right!!

As for your comment about seniority being the only way to keep good employees around -- could you defend your statement with additional comments on why and how.

In my view, employees stay at an airline because of seniority, that is, before leaving for another airline one will always think about starting right at the bottom again and that at times works against the employees' own judgement. There are numerous pilots at AE, US Air, UAL, DAL who would leave but at any other airline they would have to start at the very beginning and so they put up with whatever goes on at their respective airline. Take any other industry -- if professional employees are raped and pillaged (as has been the case with pilots) the majority WILL leave for other companies. Unfortunately, most pilots do not have that choice partly because of the SENIORITY system.

And as for Captain upgrades -- yes not everyone can pass those. By the same token, there are many out there who pass these upgrades but are still "unfit for command."

As for my managing experience at a subway shop -- you should be careful what you say because the next time DAL needs sandwiches or muffins for their International Flights (your most profitable routes as stated by you numerous times) you might just have to come down to the subway shop!!

 

[enigma]

shon7, You and General Lee are discussing apples and oranges. You find fault with the automatic pay raises that go along with longevity. I believe that you'll find longevity rewards in almost every job, union or not. Most employers recognize rewarding a loyal employee is the right thing to do.

What General Lee is defending is not longevity raises, but seniority as a way for pilots to be ensured fair treatment.

I agree with GL. We work in a 24/7/365 environment.Someone must work Christmas and Thanksgiving, someone must work on SuperBowl weekend, etc. We defend seniority lists because they are what prevents management from giving the best schedule, or the upgrades, to the arse-kissers.

I tend to agree with you that a junior pilot is just as responsible as the senior pilot and that increasing seniority in itself should not be a automatic pay raise. However, just how much do you think the pay scales rise over one's career? For the sake of the argument, forget FO pay. FO's are fine people and fine pilots, I used to be one and hope to become one again. Real soon, but that's another string. The buck stops at the left seat, so let's talk Captains pay.

At my company, Captain pay rates raise about 20% over ten years. That might be excessive, maybe not, we could have negotiated an average rate that would cost the same over ten years. Does it really matter?

I would argue that junior Captains deserve as much as senior Captains. (I are a junior Captain) But I will also argue that those rates are negotiated and remind you that management was a fifty percent party to the agreement. (That's what all of the management apologist fail to admit; management is 50% of the agreement and therefore 50% at fault for pay rates)The rates are also up for renegotiation every four years; a fact that sort of negates the ten year pay scale. In fact, the longevity pay in our contracts is inconsequential in the overall scheme of things. If it were the problem, then just rolling the longevity back to year one would fix all of our current problems. Obviously, more is needed. On a related note: In case you haven't noticed, pilots are willing to accept concessionary bargaining when times are bad. There is no credibility to any argument that pilots and pilots alone are to blame for spiraling pay rates. Look at Delta, when they renegotiated, their employer was recording record profits, Delta management agreed to pay what were competitive rates at the time. Had Delta felt that they couldn't pay those rates, they wouldn't have agreed to them. Inexperienced people like yourself should take the time to learn all of the facts before you place blame in matters in which you obviously have little experience.

You mention upgrades, again you show your inexperience. Let me assure you that upgrades are not given out in seniority order. The opportunity to upgrade is given out in seniority order, but the upgrade itself is not, I repeat, NOT given away. Unless you've got compromising pics of the check airman, the upgrade is earned. Period. In case the company is too easy, the FAA observes a good percentage of the type/upgrade rides. Also, the company gets to set the upgrade standards, as well as the right to deny the opportunity to upgrade if the candidate shows obvious problems. Unfortunately, there are some people who are good pilots, and good people, but they aren't suitable to be in command. Seniority will not get that person a seat on the left side of the cockpit.

enigma, praying for the opportunity to work for managers that get it!

 

[General Lee]

Shon7,


I would GLADLY debate this issue with you. If you have the chance, go look at pprune.org and read statements from pilots in the Middle East for example. Pilots at Qatar Airways, for example, are leaving in droves due to unfair upgrades--mainly due to who you know. That is the same at Emirates--where an upgrade may be due to how well you know a sim instructor or who you may know in the company. This is not the case in US airlines---where seniority allows you the CHANCE to upgrade, and then you have to prove whether or not you are worthy. This is called a "fair practice", and one that most pilots respect. If I were almost senior enough to hold a Captain spot at an airline and the son of the Chairman gets to upgrade first with less time at the company, I would bail out quickly---and most would do the same. Over time, your airline would be full of less experienced brown nosing wannabees that might not be as safe or have the experience as NORMAL airlines with the seniority system. Merrit based promotions can allow less experienced pilots to flow into the left seat, which compromises safety when you need it most. One large crash caused by "pilot error" can cause the company to go belly up. You should know that. Also, I don't know many Captains that I fly with that aren't capable of being a good Captain---maybe your friends know some at other airlines, but I haven't run into many that I thought weren't totally qualified. There are a few that have different attitudes, and some that I may not have been comfortable with on a personal level, but they were still good Captains and made good decisions. Brown nosing might get you far in the boardroom, but not in a heavy snow shower on a three mile final. Again, you should know that! Where do you fly that Cessna 150? Have you ever been in the situation of deciding what to do with 250 people sitting behind you and you are watching your fuel quantity closely? I have been a part of that process. You probably have made a huge decision like determining whether or not you should do a full stop or a touch and go.


As far as leaving for another company and starting over, that pretty much is called "life." It may not happen at the top corporate level, like Airline CEO's moving around to other CEO jobs, but if you are a doctor or lawyer and you stop your practice in a certain town to move to a new one, often you have to start over looking for new patients or clients. If your airline is merged with a new one, often someone loses seniority, and they often aren't very happy about it. Choosing an airline to fly for initially is a big gamble. Guys who interviewed at USAir or the original Piedmont 17 years ago probably never thought that they would be furloughed today. That sucks. The reason they didn't move on to another airline is because they probably had three kids in college and couldn't afford to start over. It all comes down to choosing the correct carrier initially, or being young enough without home liabilities and being able to move around without hurting you or your family.


As far as your funny Subway story concerning our catering, that was really a contract issue between Gate Gourmet and Delta. The judge in ATL saw that, and immediately ordered them to continue. It is interesting to note that the new CEO of Gate Gourmet is Dave Siegel, of ex-USAir fame, who never really liked Delta. There have been a lot of conspiracy theories floating around out there, but I would be interested to know the inter-workings of that agreement and what demands were made between those parties.


Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[climbhappy]

let the free market system work.

based on the article, why does the government need to step in and help the inefficient prolong their fate? The sad truth is unless two or three tank , the extra capacity and price cutting won't stop. Overcapacity and not labor is the real enemy right now.

 

[shon7]

Enigma and General-



I am responding to selected points from both your responses.



Enigma, you wrote,"most employers recognize rewarding a loyal employee is the right thing to do." Yes I agree. But my point is that employees who stick around for long periods of time are NOT ESSENTIALLY loyal. There are numerous other factors that are influencing their decision. Jet Blue and some European operators have found a good way around this where they sign on pilots with mutually renewable contracts. That way, ever five years you still have a chance to get rid of the bad apples.



You further state, "I agree with GL. We work in a 24/7/365 environment.Someone must work Christmas and Thanksgiving, someone must work on SuperBowl weekend, etc. We defend seniority lists because they are what prevents management from giving the best schedule, or the upgrades, to the arse-kissers. “The alternative to Seniority is NOT always Management Assigned. As far as scheduling goes -- airlines like Virgin use a system of rotating seniority for bidding so that nobody hogs the good trips. Upgrades -- here I will agree with your statement that the CHANCE to upgrade should be given out in order of length AND QUALITY of service to the airline. The classic argument to this will be, "how do you measure an intangible like QUALITY?" My response -- one of the ways is that you go back to everyday situations at an airline (delays, catering screwups, irate/unruly customers) and see what initiatives (if any) the pilots and other employee groups took to retain their client base and ensure the success of the airline. LUV is touted as an example where pilots help out with cleaning the aircraft and throwing bags if need be -- those are the kinds of people we should look to retain and promote because people like THEM will ensure the success of the airline. There was a book out a while back called, "Moments of Truth" by the head of SAS. That is exactly what each moment of client contact at an airline or in any service business comes down to.



Finally, you mention Emirates and Qatar in the context of unfair upgrades. I suggest that you not compare your airline to Emirates and Qatar. There are some things that they do right and many things that they do wrong. You and especially management should concentrate on what they are getting right.





If you re-read my earlier post I wrote,"Find an alternate to the SENIORITY system. Because it gives every startup an advantage in terms of costs (even if they match the existing payscales). “This is the first and foremost reason one needs to look at alternatives. Otherwise, you will have new startups that have a cost advantage EACH TIME. How to you propose to address this problem while retaining the current seniority system? Can't set a minimum wage for pilots at upstarts because that will keep going down (as we will see with Virgin America), can't base it on supply and demand (again wages will continue to spiral downwards). In addition, it won't be long before startups come up with the idea of "rostering." Again, for some this might seem farfetched but ALL it takes is (for a startup) to put in a clause in the employment contract and sign these renewable contracts with each employee for a period of X years. (Won’t do much for morale but then that has never been a management agenda).



General you write, "As far as leaving for another company and starting over, that pretty much is called "life." It may not happen at the top corporate level, like Airline CEO's moving around to other CEO jobs, but if you are a doctor or lawyer and you stop your practice in a certain town to move to a new one, often you have to start over looking for new patients or clients." Doctors and Lawyers and Managers move all the time but not at the extreme level you are looking at. In those professions a lateral move does not mean that you start from the bottom up EACH TIME. Yes, if you stop your practice and move to a new town it might -- but NOT if you just switch companies/firms/hospitals. With the airlines this is not possible. Because of SENIORITY. You start with a new airline -- you start at the bottom. Even as a Direct Entry Captain -- you start at the very bottom of the payscale (for that position).



I had posted this issue regarding SENIORITY on pprune back in 2002 and below are excerpts from two excellent responses to my post then --

There are clearly pros and cons to Seniority systems. . .One major disadvantage to pilots in general is that pay and promotion is tied so strongly to seniority.. .Seniority favours pilots who stick with their employer.. .If pilots could vote more easily with their feet and change companies for a better deal, it is quite possible that market forces could push pilot pay higher, especially for experienced pilots. Airlines could tailor their workforce to their needs more easily. Tighter regulation of standards would be needed to avoid some airlines going for'cheap' pilots and sacrificing experience and ability.. . At the moment, if you switch employer you join at the bottom of the list. This is a situation that does not happen in many other professions. It is true that pilots and doctors, amongst others, have an unusually critical responsibility.. .. . However,this lack of freedom of mobility of pilots does tend to make pilots rely on Unions for pay and conditions bargaining, to a greater . .extent. Once you have worked 10-15 years with a major airline it becomes a very difficult decision to move on. Many pilots need and would benefit from a change of scene. Motivation can be renewed by changing employer...

AND

... succesful airlines like Virgin and Emirates can operate a rotating bidding system and keep most people happy. Senior people get the increased basic pay, junior people get a shot at the lucrative trips once every x months. Fine, keep seniority for type conversions etc as a reward for long service if you like, but saying "I had it bad in the past, now you must do so also" really is no justification for a system. Would you deny your kids a Polio vaccine on that basis?



Finally, the SUBWAY story. I alluded to that because of this childish portion or your response or maybe your attempt at humor in your first post. But I'm glad you referred to it because International passengers being served MUFFINS on an International Flight isn't going to help DAL in any way. Even if it was just ONE flight -- I can guarantee that the passengers on that flight will take that experience with them and remember it for a long time to come -- IN A BAD WAY. If the brightest idea the employees could come up with was muffins -- that's ok. But from what I heard there was no effort by the FAs and the pilots to go to each passenger and speak with them about the situation and apologize for the same (this is secondhand information so don't quote me on this). A possible attitude could have been "I have put in XX years at this airline and put up with management fiascos 1,2,3,... so I shouldn't have to deal with this..." Again, these would be loyal (read SENIOR) employees (Int. route on DAL -- most probably a senior capt. and senior FA's) but didn't do much to try and retain the clients. But hey, on the bright side, at least someone took the initiative.

 

[enigma]

shon7, what's up with guys like you and lowcur that refuse to use the quote function of this bbs? It really works well and makes for much less confusion.

Enigma and General-


Enigma, you wrote,"most employers recognize rewarding a loyal employee is the right thing to do." Yes I agree. But my point is that employees who stick around for long periods of time are NOT ESSENTIALLY loyal. There are numerous other factors that are influencing their decision. Jet Blue and some European operators have found a good way around this where they sign on pilots with mutually renewable contracts. That way, ever five years you still have a chance to get rid of the bad apples.

"you still have a chance to get rid of bad apples". Nice attitude. For your information, companies can get rid of bad apples any time they dang well please. My employer has fired quite a few pilots over the last few years. Seniority, and the union that supports it, have no ability to prevent an employer from firing an employee "for cause".

You further state, "

I agree with GL. We work in a 24/7/365 environment.Someone must work Christmas and Thanksgiving, someone must work on SuperBowl weekend, etc. We defend seniority lists because they are what prevents management from giving the best schedule, or the upgrades, to the arse-kissers. “The alternative to Seniority is NOT always Management Assigned.

In the absence of a CB agreement forcing seniority as the means to award bids and jobs, management is ALWAYS in control of assignments. Good management will take care of their people, bad management might not. I would rather work for management who historically treat their people well, (again the reason I pursue SWA), but that is not always possible. Your argument seems to grant that management will always act as a benevolent dictator. I'd work for a benevolent dictator, but if I have to work for an oppressive dictator, I want the protection of union seniority. It may be the lesser of two evils, but it is the LESSER. If you want to work for an oppresive dictator and trust his good will for you quality of life, go ahead; I prefer to have some protection that I control, even if that protection is based upon something as arbitrary as my date of birth.

As far as scheduling goes -- airlines like Virgin use a system of rotating seniority for bidding so that nobody hogs the good trips. Upgrades -- here I will agree with your statement that the CHANCE to upgrade should be given out in order of length AND QUALITY of service to the airline. The classic argument to this will be, "how do you measure an intangible like QUALITY?" My response -- one of the ways is that you go back to everyday situations at an airline (delays, catering screwups, irate/unruly customers) and see what initiatives (if any) the pilots and other employee groups took to retain their client base and ensure the success of the airline. LUV is touted as an example where pilots help out with cleaning the aircraft and throwing bags if need be -- those are the kinds of people we should look to retain and promote because people like THEM will ensure the success of the airline. There was a book out a while back called, "Moments of Truth" by the head of SAS. That is exactly what each moment of client contact at an airline or in any service business comes down to.

Nice try, but there are many methods other than upgrades/pay/schedules for a company, utilizing unionized seniority controlled employees, to encourage and reward employees who go the extra mile for the company and it's customers.

Finally, you mention Emirates and Qatar in the context of unfair upgrades. I suggest that you not compare your airline to Emirates and Qatar. There are some things that they do right and many things that they do wrong. You and especially management should concentrate on what they are getting right.





If you re-read my earlier post I wrote,"Find an alternate to the SENIORITY system. Because it gives every startup an advantage in terms of costs (even if they match the existing payscales). “This is the first and foremost reason one needs to look at alternatives. Otherwise, you will have new startups that have a cost advantage EACH TIME. How to you propose to address this problem while retaining the current seniority system? Can't set a minimum wage for pilots at upstarts because that will keep going down (as we will see with Virgin America), can't base it on supply and demand (again wages will continue to spiral downwards). In addition, it won't be long before startups come up with the idea of "rostering." Again, for some this might seem farfetched but ALL it takes is (for a startup) to put in a clause in the employment contract and sign these renewable contracts with each employee for a period of X years. (Won’t do much for morale but then that has never been a management agenda).

Say what?

General you write, "As far as leaving for another company and starting over, that pretty much is called "life." It may not happen at the top corporate level, like Airline CEO's moving around to other CEO jobs, but if you are a doctor or lawyer and you stop your practice in a certain town to move to a new one, often you have to start over looking for new patients or clients." Doctors and Lawyers and Managers move all the time but not at the extreme level you are looking at. In those professions a lateral move does not mean that you start from the bottom up EACH TIME. Yes, if you stop your practice and move to a new town it might -- but NOT if you just switch companies/firms/hospitals. With the airlines this is not possible. Because of SENIORITY. You start with a new airline -- you start at the bottom. Even as a Direct Entry Captain -- you start at the very bottom of the payscale (for that position).





Finally, the SUBWAY story. I alluded to that because of this childish portion or your response or maybe your attempt at humor in your first post. But I'm glad you referred to it because International passengers being served MUFFINS on an International Flight isn't going to help DAL in any way. Even if it was just ONE flight -- I can guarantee that the passengers on that flight will take that experience with them and remember it for a long time to come -- IN A BAD WAY. If the brightest idea the employees could come up with was muffins -- that's ok. But from what I heard there was no effort by the FAs and the pilots to go to each passenger and speak with them about the situation and apologize for the same (this is secondhand information so don't quote me on this). A possible attitude could have been "I have put in XX years at this airline and put up with management fiascos 1,2,3,... so I shouldn't have to deal with this..." Again, these would be loyal (read SENIOR) employees (Int. route on DAL -- most probably a senior capt. and senior FA's) but didn't do much to try and retain the clients. But hey, on the bright side, at least someone took the initiative.

Management screws up, and now your going to slap around a few unfortunate flight crews because they couldn't just squat and produce food for first class. Man, or woman, you're absolutely unreal!

shon7, your missing one thing. Management also loves seniority. That's the difference between labor and management. Labor is happy to have it one way, we want seniority to afford us protection and are willing to put up with the negatives to get the protections; management hates seniority because it's a union function, yet they want it because it keeps their training/turnover costs at a reasonable level.

Somewhere in this string, someone alluded to the benefit to a pilot if pilots were able to jump jobs without starting at the bottom. Look at what Delta just went through, management threatened to shut er down because too many pilots were doing just that.

Finally, you management guys need to get your act together. Did you ever hear about removing the plank from your own eye before trying to remove the splinter from my eye?

enigma

btw, I HATE reserve.

 

[ivauir]

Shon,

I worked is a system like you describe and I HATED IT. Sooner or later such a system devolves into politics and butt-kissing. And then your job "creeps" - what was stellar performace yesterday becomes expected today (cleaning the jet). The next thing you know in order to get upgraded you'll be driving the lav truck and loading bags. Pilots are mostly hard charging motivated type - A personalities, a senority list protects us from ourselvs.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind doing extra - I do it all the time, but I want it to stay "extra". Keeping upgrade and other bennies non competetive (senority based) enables me to focus on the task at hand and not worry about how I stack up against anyone else. Frankly it makes me a better pilot.

 

[Publishers]

senority

The discussion here reflects the difficulty and sophistication of the problems that management deals with.
Let's look at an example from a different situation and perspective.

At another business a good deal of time ago, I had an excellent telephone receptionist whose only job was to greet visitors and route calls. Let's say she was being paid $5.00 per hour. She had no ambition or talent to do any of the other jobs in the business.

Every year she recieved pay increases based on merit and time of service. Eventually however, she was receiving more than on a weekly basis than we could get the job done for on a satisfactory basis.

You then have to look at a couple of things. What do you do? We can quit giving her merit or time raises, of course, that will make her unhappy. We can try and move her to some other job at the pay level she is in even though she does not want to go or additional respsonsibility. Or, we can just replace her.

None of these are good choices.

In a union situation we would have had to keep uping her pay based on the time in service regardless of the above facts.

What actually happened was we had to slow down her raises, she generally got less interested, started poisoning the culture by constantly taking others time to complain, and, ultimately let her go.

The job was not a $10 an hour job, it was a $5.00 whether you had been there one year or twenty, great or average.

A 747 captain is a $ job, whether you have been there 10 or 20 years.

 

[General Lee]

Why don't we all turn Communist? Yeah, that's the ticket. We'll let the proleteriot run our lives and determine what is fair. Yeah. We'll tell people what they can and can't do, and then offer upgrades to people who show us the most "love." That sounds fair. Please notice that all of the people who think the seniority system should go are NOT current airline pilots.



Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[enigma]

In a union situation we would have had to keep uping her pay based on the time in service regardless of the above facts.

Bovine Scat, pure BS. Why do you management apologists always insist that a union forces pay raises on you? You know that it's not true. Every so often, usually four years, contracts are open for renegotiation. If you don't like pay scales increasing for longevity, then don't agree to the contract. You guys are perfectly willing to draw the line on any important issue; I don't see this any differently, if you don't like it, don't agree to it.

A 747 captain is a $ job, whether you have been there 10 or 20 years.

agreed

enigma

 

[Publishers]

Enigma

The point was missed. I was not saying the union would have forced the raises but that a contract would. The problem here is that the receptionist was making a career from a job that was not a career.

The point is that there would not have been resolution under a labor contract. I would have been stuck in a situation which had a poor future.

Your point is that management negotiates it. That is true. The problem is that everything in these situations is done for the majority and often does not deal with the individual situation.

The earlier posts have pointed out some good and some bad points from a senority based system. The discussion of the resulting spread in pay for equivilant jobs allowing new carriers to thrive is legitimate.

I hoped by using he example that it would be pointed out how you can end up downstream a few years with high cost employees that are less productive.

 

[General Lee]

Publishers and Shon7,


Gordon Bethune was recently quoted saying that anyone could make money in this business if they could start over every 5 years with a new employee group and have new airplanes with little or no maintenance issues. Would you like to try that also? Let's keep everyone's pay down, except management's of course! You guys fail to recognize that many management decisions have really hurt these airlines, and the result is LABOR really paying for their(management) mistakes. How about more managemet oversight?



Bye Bye--General Lee

 

[hellas]

Simple: Wal-Mart=Southwest JB etc..= Volume up and margins and pricing down= $ ....The Pilots were just an obstacle in this process.

 

[Publishers]

General

General,

I am not defending management. They have not done a good job at many carriers and they have faced a host of problems that would have required some creative and intelligent decisions.

That said, everyone suffers in this type of environment. You mention the comments by GB. Singapore Airlines actually used to do a practice like that. They would turn over aircraft prior to any serious maintenance expenses, used contract crews, and went where the money was schedule wise.

The point, if there is one, is that management is not out here trying to screw labor. The labor casulties are victims of the fall out of other battles. The other fact is that labor never really made the transition to a deregulated situation. Unions work great in a regulated environment, airlines or automobiles, businesses where the entry cost and regulation protect you from new entry that is easy. Nevertheless, when competition does show up, you can end up sucking really hard on the pipe. In airlines though we have kept out foreign competition which offers some protection-- and you cannot really outsource airlines to another country.

If you could, heh, this game would be over for anything that even looked like a legacy carrier.

 

[General Lee]

Unions seem to work ok over at Southwest. The difference is that their management and unions know how to work with each other, and the other one isn't out to $crew the other. It would be great to live in your "perfect world", but in reality it AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN.


The unions or union (in our case) will eventually work with management, but it seems like that may happen in court, and the management will be new---appointed by the creditors. Some of those management guys should have taken Management/Labor Relations classes at Wharton.....


Bye Bye--General Lee