Originally Posted by
DashAviator
Without referencing the present case at Alaska...
It's a well-known fact that there are problem children at every company. One of our managers once told me that 10% of his employees seem to use up about 90% of his time and energy. For pilots, I think the percentage is more like 3%, but you get the idea. The range of "bad" behavior includes verbal or physical abuse, substance abuse, or intentional disregard for safety or operational procedures.
After you've been at a company for a few years, you know who the "bad actors" are. Management and the union know who they are. Nothing happens. Sure, the guy (or gal) might get hauled into the Chief Pilot's Office and get a lecture, or have a form letter added to their personnel file. Three months later, they're up to their old tricks again. Unless they do something that's actually illegal and/or exceptionally well-documented, nothing will happen.
The biggest part of the problem? Not that it's "pervasive" (it's not), but that it continues.
The reason the problem kids are allowed to linger on a low simmer on the back burner is because the ones who linger know how to walk the line. If you move the line very far, you make it too easy to catch good people in the net for accidental, arbitrary, or malicious reasons.
Similar to the criminal justice system. If you make it easy to get all the crooks, you're going to get a lot of innocents too. The collateral damage innocents are bad enough, but the real dark side would be the malicious abuse of the system by those with axes to grind.