Guys like Ornstein are openly vocal about knowing this and taking advantage of it. And why shouldn't or wouldn't they?
Union Responsibility
- Thread starter Bruce Wayne
- Start date
Guys like Ornstein are openly vocal about knowing this and taking advantage of it. And why shouldn't or wouldn't they?
LaserRacer
ALT SEL selector
Other than collect dues and cause some scandal (local 747) or have national come in and hijack contract negotiations (local 357) not much comes to mind off the top of my head.
mastermags
Well-Known Member *giggity*
Regional FO's would work for free if you promise them a quick upgrade.
Autothrust Blue
Welcome aboard the Washington State Ferries
Not this one. "Go to hell" comes to mind for anyone who's thinking about offering that.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
And how about giving UP first year pay to make gains in the rest of the group? At some point a line needs to be drawn in an "enough is enough" fashion.
Phil Schuyler
Well-Known Member
Like my old grandpappy used to say "You can always find a way to do what you want to do." The simple answer to the question is that the union doesn't want to. So, the question to ask is "Why doesn't the union want to?"
I don't have those statistics.
Skyway had plenty of "lifers", but they were generally people who didn't have higher career aspirations or, twenty years ago, dove into commercial aviation without the requisites to move on to a larger carrier because one day, when that Kit Darby Shortage™ arrives, they're not going to care about degrees, criminal records and have the ability to fog a mirror.
If someone is a "lifer", not by choice, I really have to have coffee with them and ask what they've done, today, to advance their career. It's an "every day" pursuit, not just applying online and standing in line at career fair after career fair.
There are "some" out there.
"Hey, I got hired at XYZ!"
"What's the upgrade time?" not, "Are they solvent? What's the pay like?"
The Juice
Well-Known Member
At what cost does the Union do that? Do they take less from the senior pilots to compensate the much lower paid First Officers? It sounds like a noble and "fair" way to bridge the disparity, but I don't think it is
First year pay is highly market driven and the company will be forced to increase the first year pay if, once again, pilots stop singing up to work for it. Why should an 8 year pilot give up money to help attract more pilots for the company? Stop lining up to fly a large RJ for $25 an hour and management will have to raise wages, without others sacrificing to make it happen.
HVYMETALDRVR
Well-Known Member
Well, yes.
Cherokee_Cruiser
Bronteroc
There are "some" out there.
"Hey, I got hired at XYZ!"
"What's the upgrade time?" not, "Are they solvent? What's the pay like?"
I'd say this was true when all things considered there was movement in the industry. Look at even 2006-2007 when XJT and Eagle were considered the most solvent and highest paying, and look where those pilots are today (many still RJ FOs). I think we can all agree that regional FO pay sucks, but at some places it just sucks a little worse than others. But if one plays their cards right, and goes to a regional which they think has the most potential in terms of growth, they can minimize the time spent on FO wages and get the upgrade which helps in both turbine PIC time and higher pay as a CA. Today, Aug 13 2014, I'd say the three best regionals in order to obtain that are Compass, PSA, and Mesa.
MOGuy424
Well-Known Member
Do you know what we used to make?
<— started at $14,400 at Skyway Airlines
Not sure your age or timeline but cost of aircraft rental wet then maybe 20-30.00/hr, with instructor maaaybe 45.00?
Cost now wet without instructor...120-140.00/hr, with instructor 160-175.00....for a single engine!!!
Times have changes and throw a college education in there and it's pretty impossible to come out with less than 75k debt....I had 60k and I attended a po dunk college with a bunch of crappy 150's not ERAU or UND
14k a yr would have been appreciate when you could get all your ratings plus college for less than 30k....not so much anymore.
jynxyjoe
Queso King
Unions reflect the pilots. Pilots don't care about first year pay until the second year so why should the union? The pilots have pushed national away because they want their local to control big items (the small government model) and it's done some good. So the answer to your question is that there is a historical and cultural institution of this practice.
I'm always a little embarrassed at the expectations some pilots have of the union. Whenever a problem exists we create (as pilots), it suddenly becomes "the unions" fault or "nationals" fault "Obama's" fault or whatever. Pilots and unions have opportunities every negotiation cycle to change the practice and they don't. So @Phil Schuyler , that's a little more accurate excuse than some BS, and it's what your "grandpappy" would say. In fact my grandpappy asked me why I worked for a joke wage at my first regional, and I explained the process we go through, and he rightly said, "sounds like there are too many pilots." Yup. The union can't stave off the invisible hand.
Anyway, this is a silly argument. Regional bargaining power will go down, not up. The regional industry is going to become the incredible shrinking man and management groups are going to effectively say to all the pilot groups, "We've got 18-20 thousand of you and we need about 3-6 soon, and a dozen of your companies will be gone. Come to my office and let me know who wants a job for X and who wants directions to the unemployment line. Hopefully the retirements take care of all our problems.
killbilly
Vocals, Lyrics, Triangle, Washboard, Kittens
Not sure your age or timeline but cost of aircraft rental wet then maybe 20-30.00/hr, with instructor maaaybe 45.00?
Cost now wet without instructor...120-140.00/hr, with instructor 160-175.00....for a single engine!!!
Times have changes and throw a college education in there and it's pretty impossible to come out with less than 75k debt....I had 60k and I attended a po dunk college with a bunch of crappy 150's not ERAU or UND
14k a yr would have been appreciate when you could get all your ratings plus college for less than 30k....not so much anymore.
It is not impossible to do this without debt. It may be highly improbable to be able to do it on a timeline that you find appropriate, but it's definitely not impossible.
eightballfreight
Mission accomplished
? You want to leverage first year pay to get a raise for the rest of the pilot group? Is there precedent for that? The math really doesn't support this as far as I can see.
Most longevity raises come to the tune of 3-5% per year.
For first year pay to fall in that exact line the rest of the pilot group enjoys, first year pay would have to be raised roughly 68%.
$22-$37-$39-$41
$35-$37-$39-$41
Serious question, what's your end game? You aren't getting a 68% raise if first year gets one. First year gets a 68% raise and what do you envision getting?
Not that it really matters, nobodies management is really shaking in their boots. Typically if said company can't find new hires, they are typically on the decline anyway and mgmt really doesn't have the funds to make it rain for everybody.
Also one could argue that those $13 dollars an hour first year gives up have already been plugged back into the payscale at the top $115/hour, like a shell game.
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The Juice
Well-Known Member
Not sure your age or timeline but cost of aircraft rental wet then maybe 20-30.00/hr, with instructor maaaybe 45.00?
Cost now wet without instructor...120-140.00/hr, with instructor 160-175.00....for a single engine!!!
Times have changes and throw a college education in there and it's pretty impossible to come out with less than 75k debt....I had 60k and I attended a po dunk college with a bunch of crappy 150's not ERAU or UND
14k a yr would have been appreciate when you could get all your ratings plus college for less than 30k....not so much anymore.
And because the initial ROI is so poor, it should persuade people even more to not work for the low wages. The fact that it costs so much to become a pilot is 100% irrelevant when it deals with what pay should be. Pay is a function of supply, not initial investment.
You do not need college to get hired at a regional, so the cost of attending a university isn't even necessary for the job. I'm sure you can still get your ratings pt61 and instruct afterwards for far less than they numbers you use.
However people don't want that. They want a fast track program for $75,000 or/and the fancy aviation degree that goes along with it for $50,000 more.
Where does personal responsibility ever come in? Everyone who has taken out a large loan knew that it was a large loan that would require payment one day. Every airline posts their pay for everyone to see when deciding where to apply.
I was on first year Colgan pay back in the day for $21 an hour and it sucked. This was something I knew in advance and still signed up for. Nobody to blame for that but myself.
DV8Pilot
DPE
If the pay raise pie is only so big I'm not willing to take a smaller piece to increase that slice for new-hires. That new-hire slice needs to be made bigger from management's cut. You're right, I'm not going to get a 68% raise, but I may get 5%, or work rule improvements. Also it is a shell game that's beneficial to new-hires, a lower first year pay, where you're only going to spend 1 year a that rate, in exchange for a hirer rate at the top, where you could be for 20 years, is much more beneficial.
eightballfreight
Mission accomplished
Shrug, compounding interest doesn't agree with that. We have what we have today because it is very much not in our favor, IMO.
pete2800
'Member?
Would you tolerate flat-dollar-amount increases? In a scenario where management has agreed to a value amount, and it's up to the union to distribute it... instead of doing percentages they could divide that amount evenly between all steps of the pay scale. If a max pay Captain got a $1.20 increase and so did a first year FO, would you find that objectionable on the grounds that the FO got a 6% raise while the Captain only got 1%?
What would be beneficial for the entire industry is compressing the pay scale to enable lateral movement without massive pay destruction. A long and drawn-out pay scale only serves to effectively kill a person's mobility once they get a ways into it. If we could choose to take our skills to a different company without undue suffering, perhaps management would have to think a bit more carefully about how they chose to treat their employees. In the current environment, the majority of pilots end up attached to their company, for better or for worse... simply because they'd take such a massive hit if they left. Compression of the scale can do nothing but help. I realize that first year pay is only for one year, but if you look at it from a standpoint of enabling lateral moves, it becomes much more valuable.
I think you've got this backwards, to be honest. Yes, filling new hire classes helps the company. But where are those new hires coming from? Many are making lateral moves. Voting with their feet, and bailing on their previous employer. The best thing that could possibly happen for this industry is that we enable people to do just that: Leave crappy companies in pursuit of better opportunities. Instead we resign ourselves to "This place sucks and will probably die off at some point, but I can't leave because the bottom of everyone else's pay scale is unbearable."
It's a bad strategy, and it's clearly not working.
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Phil Schuyler
Well-Known Member
Looking back at the original post I realized I read "first year" instead of "first officer." However, my original piece of sage advice--"You can always find a way to do something you want to do"-- still stands. In other words, it's all about your priorities and what you want to do.
That said, you need to understand that the wage pie is a fixed amount. An increase on one side necessitates a decrease elsewhere. Increases in First Officer pay will result in decreases in Captain's pay.