Well imo dispatchers in a company should be paid all the same as we are all doing the same job. Excluding overrides for international training atc. But everyone of them think company seniority needs to be factored in payscales. Even if a newly hired dispatcher has 15 to 20 years experience.
This. Absolutely this.
I have never understood why unions negotiate multi-step pay scales. What is that 20 year dispatcher doing that the new-hire is not?
In additiona to that, the multi-tier pay scale give a competitive advantage to new entrant companies, who exploit the fact that they don't have top of scale labor costs. This is how the mainlines whipsaw their regional partners against one another. That's how Air Wisconsin lost its United contract.
And yet the unions continue to do it.
One base rate of pay, with overrides for additional qualifications! Reward effort and merit
I appreciate you taking the time to reply and what you shared makes all the sense in the world to me. So why aren't the regional airlines smart enough to see this? Don't they have any concept of people being an investment rather than an expense, especially in a role like dispatching where competence can bring a return on investment that is several multiples of the original investment, not to mention keep the company out of wretched spots in the regard to safety & legal/regulatory matters?
The regional airlines are smart enough to not pay any more than they can get away with. They'd pay less if they could. My beef with the regional is not the airlines, but the newbies who willingly sign on for these wages. I think (at least part of) the reason is that they have no historical memory or context for reference.
I started out in 1996 at the princely sum of $8.78 per hour, and that was one of the HIGHER paying jobs American Eagle was offering $8.25 an hour, Express I/II was offering $17K a year. Atlantic Coast Airlines was offering $10 an hour, but of course, it was Washington DC. I
I was dispatching 37 seat turboprops on short (150-200nm, 45 minute) flights. As another poster said, the skill set required for that job was not as extensive as what is required in today's modern regional airline industry. (I don't even call them airlines. They're small jet providers, but that's a different discussion.). You could almost dispatch flights off of the METAR alone.
$8.25 an hour, adjusted to today's COL brings us to $13.50 hour. To their credit, American Eagle is starting people at slightly more than that, at $14.80 an hour. But when you consider that in the intervening two decades, they've evolved from ATRs and SF3 to CRJ7s and E175s, and they are now flying 3.5 hour transcons. vs. 30 minute puddle jumps, I think it's fair to say that the required skill set has changed. Back then, VOR and ILS were the order of the day. Now it's CAT II/III, GPS, RNP, driftdown, etc.
Consider also that the revenue that is being generated by these flights has gone up 10 fold. By an measure you care to use regional dispatchers are more productive, but that is not reflected in their wages.