Originally Posted by
RemoveB4flght
My point is, if we allow the government to step in and mandate how much we get paid on the bottom end, what is to stop them from doing the same on the upper end? If they can bypass contract language and re-establish low end pay, why not upper end as well? When you allow the goverment to control your wages, you allow politics and knee-jerk lynch mob mentality to control it as well. Airline in chapter 11? Uncle Sam steps in and cuts your wage to help make the company solvent... or sets a cap on what you can possible earn. What about the next Buffalo, the next Atlanta/MSP, or some other incident? Public opinion sways politician's vote on what you are worth.
Maybe that sounds a little too far fetched of a conspiracy theory for some of you, but I am willing to accept that there will be a lower low end to pilot pay scales than to openly allow goverment to determine what pilots are worth. They already control enough of my wage through taxes.
The fallacy in your argument is that with a minimum wage, the government wouldn't be bailing out the company, and, thus, has no influence on maximum wages. We have a track record of companies entering Chapter 11 for decades, all of them paying a federally mandated minimum wage, with no outcries from politicians or the public to reduce executive salaries (with the notable exception of the workers of said company). The line that has been crossed, it seems, is when the executives are making unbelievable bonuses when the company is in such mortal financial peril.
I'd like to see one documented example of a company that has NOT received federal bailout money with minimum wage employees entering Chapter 11 (or without C11, for all I care), where the government has stepped in a regulated top salaries at all(successfully as well, not just political blustering), let alone regulated salaries to the point where it would effect a lowly airline pilots salary (which in the scheme of executive pay is low). You show me a documented example of this happening EVER, and we'll talk again.