Petrel
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This may shed some light as to why the low-paid newer pilots are scheduled for more flights than the salaried senior ones:
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How unions devastate the airline industry
- Thread starter Loren Pechtel
- Start date
UNIONS make the flight schedules? My ex (a pilot) says not.
They don't make the schedules themselves. They decide the workloads, though.
No they don't
The problems with the airlines beganwith deregulation. It led to cutthroat price completion and themerging of airlines.
If anything deregulation led to more of a need for unions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_deregulation
If anything deregulation led to more of a need for unions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airline_deregulation
Read the link.
Something we agree on.
I did. He is full of shit.
What's shit about it? Just because it says very bad things about unions doesn't make it wrong.
What makes him wrong is that he spouts nonsense about how airlines are run, and how scheduling is done. Unions in and of themselves have nothing to do with it.
What's nonsense about it?
This, for starters.
He sounds like a guy who washed out as a pilot, and he is still bitter about it.
I have no argument that new pilots (and flight attendants) on region airlines make barely livable wages. I know because that is why I am not a flight attendant now. I know because I supported my pilot husband through his first few years flying.
But it is absolute nonsense for the OP idiot to claim that new pilots earn so little because senior pilots or unions dictate it.
More bullshit:
Is he suggesting that Captains are not pilots? Is he suggesting that FO's do all of the flying? Or does he just not understand the terminology of the industry he presumes to pontificate about? No wonder he got furloughed and never called back.
And since you think this guy's word is gospel, I'd like for you to support this claim of current salary in the US:
He makes it sound like this is such a common occurrence that these $300,000 a year earning pilots are controlling the unions, airlines, and work schedules of more junior pilots. Prove it.
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Petrel
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According to both the pay schedules and article I referred to earlier, $300,000 is very uncommon, earned only by a few top pilots at a few major airlines. Now I see the guy includes "benefits" and we don't know what those are or how they're $ valued. He's probably also comparing guaranteed annual salaries to hourly wages, which really are not comparable.
Obviously, the negotiating process can't work the way he says, since a majority of union members are unlikely to be top senior pilots. Also, if all the pilots are paid hourly, the top guys would need to fly more hours than the juniors, not less, to reach those lovely numbers (which, btw, wouldn't sound all that high for a comfortable, safe high-level executive gig.).
And why cannot any airline pay all its pilots decently? That's not down to the union; surely it's a matter of individual company budget allocation.
If a union has negotiating power, none of its members would ever have to spend unpaid hours at work, or receive no vacation and sick pay - which, apparently is common in airlines.
Obviously, the negotiating process can't work the way he says, since a majority of union members are unlikely to be top senior pilots. Also, if all the pilots are paid hourly, the top guys would need to fly more hours than the juniors, not less, to reach those lovely numbers (which, btw, wouldn't sound all that high for a comfortable, safe high-level executive gig.).
And why cannot any airline pay all its pilots decently? That's not down to the union; surely it's a matter of individual company budget allocation.
If a union has negotiating power, none of its members would ever have to spend unpaid hours at work, or receive no vacation and sick pay - which, apparently is common in airlines.
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Canard DuJour
Veteran Member
The implication is that if airlines could bid down the wages and benefits of senior pilots, they'd give the difference to junior pilots they can get for peanuts.
This silly argument, in one form or another, is as old as unions.
This silly argument, in one form or another, is as old as unions.
Petrel
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But why is it even a problem that somebody with 25 years experience in a high-stress job that keeps him far from home much of the time, can be quite dangerous (especially given some of the cost-paring on airplane maintenance) should - in the rare, very best case - get $300,000, in pay and benefits, before tax? Why call that "a mint"?
For a banker, that would be petty cash.
Why not make the legitimate complaint that pilots are generally screwed over by their employers?
For a banker, that would be petty cash.
Why not make the legitimate complaint that pilots are generally screwed over by their employers?
arkirk
Veteran Member
Because this is Loren's thread and he hates unions...possibly all workers. In the case of the airlines, their unions have been emasculated by many years of concessions to an airline industry that cries "poor" all the time then outsources as much of their operation as possible to third world countries with cheap labor.
You are right; pilots are getting screwed and so are their passengers, the environment, and even people who never fly.
Petrel
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Oh. OK
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
I don't think that you are understanding what I am saying. I am not saying that the unions should run the companies, which is what you are trying to make it.
I am saying that wages are too important to be subject to competitive pressures. That all of the companies should be paying the same wages for the same work. That the wage rates and the working conditions should be negotiated industry wide, not each company negotiating with its own employees.
There is nothing in that that gives the unions more control over what the company does. The management still runs the company. They just will have to compete based on something other than whatever wage breaks that they could make.
In the recent recession Northwestern negotiated a 1 billion dollar wage concession from their pilots. Less than a year later they gave their executives bonuses totaling 1 billion dollars.
Once again, wages are the way that capitalism distributes resources to the nation. The labor market is not a fair market. Without unions or some other mechanism like what I am suggesting companies are able to suppress wages over the long term to increase profits. What we end up with is exactly what we have right now, too little labor share, too much capital share. Too little demand, too much money in the financial markets, money that causes repeated asset bubbles, money far in excess of what can be invested in the real economy of producing the things that people need. A healthy economy requires a balance in all things.
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
What on earth is dirty accounting? I don't see where accounting has anything to do with this discussion.
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
According to the fantasy of the free market in order to allocate most efficiently, everyone's salary and wages must be based on their marginal productivity. Over the last few decades the only real increase in salaries and wages has been in executive pay. This means that you must believe that the only increases in marginal productivity has occurred at the executive level.
Is this what you are saying?