Some very wise words from
Col. Walter E. Kurtz in his last post.
I think we all owe
Wiley a large vote of thanks for starting this long overdue discussion with the thread he started about three threads ago that led to this one (the
]thongs and blue singles thread).
What amazes me is the seemingly widely held belief among pilots that the industrial situation today is ‘different’ and ‘more difficult’ than it was for our predecessors, and therefore what worked before industrially won’t work in today’s workplace for
***workers*** facing a threat to their pay and conditions.
(I stress “workers” because, let’s face it, troops, that’s all we are, despite pretensions some of our luckier brethren, particularly those with a large white marsupial on their business cards.)
I got the following letter from a good mate who has recently retired from the industry after what everyone who knows him would consider a distinguished career. He was my first training captain when I won the Lotto and got that elusive airline job right on the upper age limit of 27. (Yes, not so long ago, that was the upper age limit to get into the ‘big two’.)
I’ve bold-faced it, hoping everyone will read it and take on board the wisdom it contains –
particularly those among you, both heroes and younger hero-worshippers, who advocate the currently fashionable ‘every man for himself’ adage. For what it’s worth, I agree with him – the beginning of the end for all of us was when the QF pilots broke away to form their in house ‘club’. I believe management celebrated long into the night when they heard of that development way back in the early eighties, because they saw all too clearly that we had divided OURSELVES, with the obvious and inevitable consequences that we see throughout the farce that passes for an industry in Australia today.
Hi (410),
What is happening in the industry now almost brings tears to my eyes and I am out of it. When I joined Ansett in 1965, I was paid the magnificent salary of 23 pounds per week. The going salary for a new start bank clerk at the time was 28 pounds per week.
I left a job where I was earning over 30 pounds per week to start airline flying.
I sort of hated the bastard, but Dick Holt, with the backing of a strong association, slowly got significant salary increases, despite the bleating of the companies. They were strong in every sense of the word, industrially and technically. We were even a highly respected force in the International Federation of Air Pilots.
QF pilots saw the writing on the wall for their own little politically protected monopoly, and broke away (domestic pilots are a lower form of life and could not possibly fly internationally). It was sort of downhill after that as the managers and politicians watched what happened in the USA and saw us as a particularly naive and easy target.
Most of us probably hated what happened in 89 and would have done anything except betray our workmates or friends to have seen a satisfactory resolution to the then problem. That's where these parasites don't get it or their brains become fogged from sniffing petrol fumes. Their selfish and naive actions put the industry into inevitable decline. They are now the ones bleating along with the likewise naive, righteous QF pilots who stood on the fence and bleat "What are we going to do". There are also a lot of historically ignorant young pilots around now, who know they are being anal raped, but don't know why.
One statement Dick Holt made at a meeting years ago, burned into my brain, but probably went over the heads of most. "You guys are economically ignorant. Mark my words, gross dollars mean everything !" People at the time were wanting improved concession travel, free cars and benefits etc.
I think perhaps mad cow decease has been around longer than we think.
Xx
In closing,
VB_Capt, your comment: <<“It's only in the last 14 years that the AFAP has represented GA because its had sweet FA airline pilots to represent.”>> is totally incorrect, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of the pre 89 AFAP will attest, (even heroes with non-selective memories, many of whom were GA pilots who were actively and effectively represented by the AFAP before they turned their back on the union and ‘looked after themselves’). However, judging by your previous posts on this subject, you seem to me to be someone who doesn’t like facts getting in the way of a deeply-held opinion.