Originally Posted by
87iroc&amullet
You misunderstand me, sir! I only mean "quality" from the standpoint of economic bargaining power and opportunity cost. Today's reduced barriers to entry have allowed much greater numbers of those with little, if any, of either, to enter the talent pool. With any drastic increase of availability of applicants (barring anomalous events such as the end of a war) comes an inevitable decrease in overall quality, resulting in incentive to lower compensation.
I believe this to be the core labor philosophy of Jonathan Ornstein and his ilk. I disagree with such exploitive tactics, but the market allows them for the very reasons I've described.
I believe that the people who would fight hardest, and be better "quality" in the realm of economic bargaining for higher wages, are the ones who are hurting the most financially; not these rich kids who don't even know how their student loans are being paid for and will never see a loan bill or fight off creditors. Those are the types of kids who end up going right to Mesa and to a poor labor contract (because they can afford to do it).
The "ditch-diggers" and the "20 year old kids" should be classified into two different groups.
I believe the "low quality" applicants you speak of are not the ditch diggers, but the kids who have never dug a ditch in their life, and will take any job as long as the jets are shiny and they can impress their friends (not to say that all Mesa pilots never worked other jobs before, but they can somhow afford the low QOL aparently). The people who earned their keep by working menial jobs and hard labor to work their way through college, however, will want what’s coming to them, and not settle for a crappy QOL. Sorry though, if I misunderstood your original point.