Originally Posted by
milky
Technology has greatly affected this industry. Flying a plane is much easier and navigation is a whole lot easier than it was 20 years ago (unless you fly equipment that has not been upgraded like my 727 bros). I'm sure there are many of you that fly on older equipment, fine. Anyway, dudes with no experience are flooding the market and for the most part not crashing jets daily. You are correct, there are many factors bringing down the wages of pilots.
And to say you have no recourse is an idiotic statement. For now, this country is still free! You can go out and get a job or start a business doing ANYTHING YOU WANT!
Are you a pilot? Do you even know anything at all about the RLA?
We aren't exactly playing evenly anymore. It may be a free market system, but under the RLA we are fighting with one hand behind our backs. It is all fine and good to say they can hire any novice commercial pilot and teach them to be a FO.... what you're missing is that FO's are not making command decisions in the airplanes. They have basically run out of skilled professional labor willing to take the job for such low pay and are recruiting people who just don't know any better....
All the pilot unions are saying is that since the govet completely deregulated the industry, they need to deregulate the labor force as well so we can effectively negotiate fair wages and rules. The current system does not allow our labor representatives a fair opportunity to negotiate effectively. The current system basically has the employee trapped with no other option except to leave. Your solution of leaving isn't very realistic, but it makes a great soundbyte.