Probably the worst thing you can do to the morale is have DEC.
led to the enormous loss of confidence in management
We had it happen here even though our contract forbade it. The mechanism was so stunningly simple that I think it warrants a note. A certain charter airline was about to go under and a lot of their fully qualified Captains applied to our glorius airline....Cheesy A, under one condition. They would go left seat only. The prospect of saving thousands on type ratings caused permanent erections in our management. (Can I say they stood up and took notice
? ) So, they hired these guys as FO's and immediately gave them a leave of absence. This placed them on the seniority list at the bottom. Lo and behold, three months down the road, the coveted selection process starts.....but wait a minute, seems that no one meets the criteria EXCEPT these new hires who have conveniently showed up on the seniority list without anyone knowing.........and I forgot to mention that they were hired on the spot without any 'selection process' which is standard procedure for new hires.
This would explain why LE is a little.....well...ahem... touchy......the company wants loyalty, showers everyone with propaganda in their monthly 'employee newsletter' and then completely screws us over in a flash. I was one of the ones in the group that LE was in. Took command on the ATR because the company assured me that there was no other way, everyone had to go through this and bada-bing bada-bang, spent years on the type before clawing my way back to the 737. The plane type is irrelevant, the scheduling and the financial rewards are markedly different on each type.