Originally Posted by
firefighterplt
I’m not smart on the airline contracts, but I saw the following go down in a police dept contract negotiation:
Union’s attitude was that it represented current cops, not future cops. Senior cops voted to increase their pay at the expense of more junior cops. They increased top pay, but moved it down the line slightly to appease the bean counters, and cut pay for the first few years to aid with the offset.
What’s to say something similar isn’t negotiated? In a few years, most airlines won’t have any guys under three years...airline pitches a cut in year 0-3 salary, and dangles some other carrot in front of the pilots in order to get it—what do they care about guys who aren’t yet hired?
It's happened before... but the airlines may not go for that.
The last round of negotiations at the majors, and especially the regionals, saw the COMPANY fighting for higher pay in the first three-ish years, so they could compete in the pilot market. Candidates who liked everything else about an airline were being turned off by low starting pay... me included, I ruled out several majors because I wasn't going to take a pay cut for longer than one year, and not much of one at that.
The problem with doing it now is two-fold.
1) As you said, not many will be on that scale for long anyway so it doesn't save much money near-term.
2) When hiring resumes, the airlines might find they need to compete for candidates again... and the union will not just let them raise first-year pay, they'll hold that hostage for broader gains as a matter of course.
Not much upside for the company, but potential downside. Especially for regionals, who may not have seen the last of the pilot shortage.