That is how every other industry works, why should the airlines be different? If I have a plumbing business, or a restaurant, or any other business, I can choose to cut the benefits of employees if I want to. They can leave then if they want to. That is how the real world works.

The trick is that most companies do not want to lose their employees. It takes time and money to train new employees, and takes months if not years to get them up to the level of my current employees. What makes the airlines different is the whole seniority thing. I understand that you think that it is different based on seniority, but you CHOSE to become a pilot and work in a profession which places such a huge value on seniority. Once you took the job, with the understanding of how the system worked, you accepted it. Complaining about it after the fact is like buying a car and then complaining to the dealer that it is red. You bought it, it is not their fault.

 

I'm not complaining Ace. I'm simply stating you have a very simplistic view. The system is rigged to the company's favor and there is nothing WE can do about it. Your attempting to use a metaphor that does not fit. This industry is like no other (maybe the railroad: Railroad Labor Act of 1926). Go figure that one out.
I would suggest to you that any airline (major or regional) would be happy to lose an employee especially a senior pilot and replace them with a more junior one. I would also submit for your consideration the fact that it is not the individual companies that are terribly skewed in management's favor but the entire industry.
I am not a US vs Management guy, but I am a realist. I do believe that an individual should be given a wage that is commensurate with the responsibility of the position. The issue I take with your stated position is that you seem to believe pilots are just another labor group. Not sure if my assumption is correct?

 

Pilots are just another labor group. The sooner you realize you're not a special snowflake the happier you'll be.

 

You're definitely special .

 

I am just saying that when you decided that you wanted to be a pilot, you had to accept the good and the bad. Many pilots take the job, and then try to change it to make it what they want. Sorry.....their airplanes, their rules.

 

That's true to a certain degree.
But the Eagle guys have a contract that's good for at least a few more years and pilots are in short supply.
Using your example.
Lets say you went to work for a restaurant as a chef.
The hourly rate was set for at least the next few years, even in the face of a chef shortage.
About six months into the gig, you find that the boss is a drunk and his boy toy is a cross dresser.
But when he asks you to take it in a$$; 'cause his other two chefs like it, do you gladly get drunk, don a dress, take it in the can, then get a DUI on the way home as you pass through the school zone?

 

Above you are flat out wrong
Other jobs for example within the oil industry are paid based on company profitability. If you want to set toilets and be the tyrant at your own fiefdom then fine. But don't go off pontificating about things you know nothing about.

 

Nope...well, maybe parts of it....but not in a school zone.

I would quit and go to another job. If people did this, and the airlines actually needed pilots, things would change. At the regional level, however, there is not yet a shortage and therefor no pressure on management to increase pay or add benefits.

The problem is that there are too many wanna-be's that would accept any job, no matter the bad parts. At the regional level, this is to be expected. I do not blame anyone that voted yes or no, based on their individual situations. If PDT's contract worked for them, then congratulations to them. If ENY's did not, then the same thing goes. The problem is when one group starts blaming another group. That is childish and counterproductive.

 

Sure, some jobs are based on profitability. Lawyers are another great example of this.

The airlines are not an industry that currently does. If you want profit sharing, go work in an industry that has profit sharing.

 

SkyWest??

filler