These ideas are crazy. Management doesn't determine pay based on whether they are good or evil. They make decisions based on money.What goes in their pocket not the share holders. If they keep the labor happy, they will do their job, not call in sick as much and generally be more productive, but most importantly not organize. We as pilots need union protection because it is extremely hard to recognize pilot productivity. When you give that pilot a raise his productivity does not increase, he still gets airplane from point A to point B for X amount of dollars. When he is doing more work for the same money that is a pay cut management wins. When he gets you to do more work for less money he wins and laughs at you.You can call management evil if you like because yes their job is to keep labor costs low and increase shareholder value. If that was the case about shareholder value explain bankruptcy mania? They don't give a damn about the shareholder because they can get filthy rich by running the company into the ground. Just name a Legacy and its been done. Effectively their job is to pay you as little as possible. I guarantee they had an analyst run the numbers and determine that by declaring bankruptcy they would be able to reduce labor costs by X amount of dollars. This was the best option to increase value so thats what they did. Hence RJ's. A 900 CA at my company and the new hire FO make about 113 an hour an thats just a DC-9 CA at NW.This was their way to muscle the labor groups.
I want to increase pilot pay and get as much bang for the buck for my flying. Here are my conclusions so far on the only way this is possible.
1. Increase collective bargaining power. (vote, stand united, let your voice be heard) That starts at the top down. Scope out regional jet flying.
2. Reduce the quantity of labor See above.
a. this could be done by increasing FAA minimums to enter the industry
b. prove that a low time pilot costs the company more money (ie smoking holes, higher insurance premiums)FAA doesn't care about labor costs until some holes get smoked in the ground. When RJ's start dropping about one a month then you might see the FAA step in 5 years later.
c. as flight training becomes more expensive less people will do it Don't know where your getting your bank roll, but If I didn't do it 10 years ago I wouldnt be able to do it today. It's already expensive.
d. educate people on the truths of the industry (get more people to demand more compensation, accepting low pay kills us)Impossible. See GoJet thread.
3. Increase demand for labor
a. get more people flying (VLJs and foreign demand will help this) VLJ are the next cancer. All we need is a bunch of 10,000lb jet cruising in the 30's at .55
Way I see it we have the most control over 1 and maybe 2(d), the invisible hand determines the rest. See PCL's example. Ego plays a big role. Thats why the airline business is like highschool.
If you really want someone to call evil then go after the shareholders. They're getting ###### as bad as any one. They are the ones that will replace management when value is decreased. I agree that Bankruptcy should result in management being fired and left with nothing.Thank God
Sadly, you couldn't be more wrong about management's motivations in this business. I suggest three books for you to read that will give you a good knowledge base in these issues: Hard Landing, Flying the Line Vol I, and Flying the Line Vol II. These three books will give you a window into the airline manager's convoluted mind. This is more about ego gratification to them than profitability. If they have to lose $100 million dollars in order to achieve the ego boost of damaging a union, then they consider that a great bargain. Delta Air Lines lost $500 million dollars during the Comair strike, but if management would have given in to every single demand of the CMR pilots, it would have only cost them $50 million. You have to understand the airline management ego before you can understand what you're up against.
