The whole "paying your dues" argument is completely outdated and is just pilots putting themselves against each other because some more senior pilots think because they had horrible QOL and pay for a decade so everyone else should. Also for the requirement of being a CA for a year to flow somehow found its way into the CBA is just egregious, and completely goes against the spirit of USERRA. This is coming from someone who has no military experience and doesn't intend to, but what if a new 21yo FO gets drafted and his flow date comes up but he can't because he hasn't served for a year as captain? Really isn't fair at all. It could probably be challenged legally as well since USERRA clearly states a person should be given an advancedment opportunity based on the years they are with the company/where their peers are at. If guys in your new hire class flowed a year or two before you because you went off to war and came back, this completely goes against the "escalator principle" of USERRA. I'd love to see some military guys challenge it in court, which I believe there is come current arbitration going on via the union for this exact issue, but by the time that's up their new flow date will probably already be approaching. Federal law trumps any CBA, look at what happened at GoJet and their USERRA case. The company is already trying to withhold guys from flowing who were displaced as captain, which is completely opposite of what the CBA says is allowed.