Reaching the goal of being a pilot has never been easy, nor do I think it should be, considering the responsibility a commander carries.
This is very true, but the ability to become an aircraft commander should be based on ability and performance not just the ability to pay. The filters to take the unsuitable aviators out of the system should be training and personality based not financial. At the end of the day, why should pilots have to subsidise a commercial organisation's training budget? (remember they can reclaim VAT on training - the individual cannot)
In the UK there are probably enough new positions for 75-100 people (to account for expansion or new start ups, in a good year), and movement further up the food chain accounts for probably about 300 places for more experienced bods moving out of night freight/instructing/regional turbo props (again in a good year). So all in all there is probably not much more requirement than 400 jobs per year available for new pilots this equates roughly to the annual output of 1 mid sized flying school. The likes of Ryanair/EZY may have skewed the figures slightly but not by much I would guess. So there is, and as far as I can see, there always has been an over supply of bright shiny newbies but now the rise of the SSTR is allowing those with more financial means the ability to get into a jet who may not be the type of people who will make decent commanders in the future. This just my supposition – based on a conversation I had with a 737 TRI, maybe someone in the training department from an airline can comment with more authority?
As for the money, there is nothing exceptional about pilots' salaries these days. A great many other jobs and professions can and do pay more, and without quite such an enormous investment up front. It is possible to earn over £100k in this country from flying, but the numbers who do are very small! For the majority of commercial pilots in UK, £40-50k is probably the most they'll see, and a great many have to make do on half of that.
I don't really see what a union or others can (or even should) change about that.
An organised and effective union can change the terms and conditions for the better. I may be wrong in this, but I suspect if pilots were represented by say the TGWU instead of BALPA, Dan-Air pilots might not have been given such a shafting back in the early 1990's. It seems from a semi-outsiders point of view that pilots in general are willing to roll over far too easily to management demands and desires, as well as being more than willing to sell their granny and stab their colleagues in the back in order to get that elusive first job. There is nothing inherently wrong with being in a trade union (the Arthur Scargill type of union leader is now history), they can and do look after the rights, terms and conditions of employees, but like any democratic body they are only as good as the members they represent. The people in power need to know what the membership are concerned about and react accordingly.
Again looking at the UK railway industry, after privatisation, many companies tried to implement a number of questionable practices which were countered by the unions. I believe one company (it may have been South West Trains but stand to be corrected) did try to levy some sort of bonding for training but the reaction of the unions was total outrage and the idea was dropped rapidly. The unions point of view was that bonding would hamper their members ability to find work with other employers…
I suspect that in a couple of years this discussion will become superfluous anyway with the introduction of the Multi-Pilot Licence, which will effectively kill the current way of commercial pilot training.