Wow! How long ago was this?

I am still not sure union make sense. They are a phenomenon of the past - area of early industrialization. There are plenty of business - in fact the majority of free enterprises - that work just fine or better without a union. Look at what unions have done to the manufacturing sector in the US and most recently the automotive industry. It took major bail outs and all the job growth is the the south with Japanese and European manufacturers without a union.

Not being able to switch jobs at the appropriate level and having to start over at the bottom is only related to the seniority system. And that is self-induced as in pilot induced. It is probably not gonna change ever but our own doing.

As for being paid for experience ... That is also a little misleading. People are generally paid for productivity. In many sectors that relates to experience to some extend.

However, we are naturally limited. We fly 50 passengers (or 76 as the case may be). And it doesn't really matter if you have been in your seat for 2 years or 10 years. The productivity is the same.

Productivity goes up as seat count goes up ... and maybe stage length.

Free Trade is less of a tested experiment than unions.
Someday a generation will grow up to to reverse that tide.

September 2014...

My solution to this is eliminate longevity and use a flat payscale. No raise just for hanging around longer. But the upside is the industry/market economy would have little incentive to replace pilot groups just because they've been around for a while.

This would work for majors as well as regionals...too many LCC startups are thriving because they get to pay all of their labor at the bottom of the scale starting out. That's an artificial advantage.

The new scale would be set based on where people currently on that scale sit...ie junior narrowbody might use year 4 scale, senior widebody might be year 12 since almost everybody on the fleet is already 12+ years in.

Longevity could still count for things like increased vacation accrual...a little reward for sticking around but enough to create a big competitive gap with new-hire.

Seniority would still apply for bidding equipment, upgrade, schedules, vacation, etc.

The trick with this is the implementation...anybody who is already above the average would not want to take a paycut so labor would have to force this kind of structural change at a time when the airlines could afford to grandfather senior people on their current hourly rate. Hmmm...now might be a good time for that.

This is necessary but not sufficient. Clearly a step in the right direction. But seniority overall is at fault. Pay rates are misleading. Your QoL is so much driven by what trips you can hold etc. So your $/hr away or on the job vary drastically - and this is much more a function of trip quality rather than longevity pay.

You could pay for duty or TAFB instead of block. But that's more to address inequity of compensation distribution within the labor group. Different issue, but worthy of discussion.

My suggestion would level the playing field across the industry (if implemented industry wide) taking labor more or less out of the competitive equation and hopefully creating career stability which is probably beneficial in a safety-sensitive job. Firefighters are not usually asked to take a pay cut or risk being replaced by another, cheaper fire-house.

Not exactly true, Moffett Federal Airfield went from govt firefighters to contract lesser paid contract companies, not to mention the private prison industries, privatization of FAA towers, ect.

Like I said, usually not.

NAI will result in new pay scales around soon anyway. It's amazing to see the guys on SAPA forums not seeing what the problem is and thinking they won't be affected.