There are always 2 sides to every situation and I am not without sympathy for an in debt, newly qualified frozen ATPL pilot who can't get onto the bottom rung of the aviation ladder. Given the choice of either working for free to gain experience or doing the honourable thing but remaining unemployed it is not difficult to see how unscrupulous beancounters seek to take advantage of the newly qualified pilots situation. We need to find a third option.
I am not sure what that third option is but I do feel that, as a pilot group, we need to be a little more pro active. We can't just slate newbies for taking the only option that they feel they have and expect the problem to fix itself. Having reached my mid 40s without ever having been a member of a union I am now of the opinion that it is absolutely essential to protect against the relentless tide of beancounting that knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.
A few years ago, one of my former employers (UK Charter) made 30 pilots redundant just before christmas. The financial director responsible for the redundancies got a very nice christmas bonus. Next year the airline were short of crews, suffered major roster disruption and missed out on lucrative sub charters. This sort of lunacy has to stop.
