Originally Posted by
industry insider
GLS
Question for you, have any of the striking PHI pilots found employment with other companies yet? Since there appears to be no prospect of a negotiated settlement with PHI I wondered if any striking pilots had found work with a decent company who treats its pilots with the respect they deserve, since its unlikely that any of you will return to PHI due to them paying the lowest wages in the GOM.
I don't know how many have found other employment yet, but surely many of us are exploring our options. I wouldn't go so far as to say there's no prospect of a negotiated settlement, but it does look a lot less certain than we thought at the beginning of the strike. However, that's not the main reason I'm considering other employment.
Prior to this strike I honestly believed I had the best job in the company - best aircraft I've ever flown, best customer I've ever flown for, outstanding maintenance, great people to work with. I envied absolutely no one, from the owner on down. And I was well paid. But, I've said all along that when a job stops being fun, it's time to leave. The way my company's management has dealt with us prior to and during this fiasco has made me reconsider my relationship with PHI in a very harsh light. I'm just not very optimistic I'll enjoy working in the environment that will exist after this strike.
In reality, there is no guarantee that I won't have the same or worse complaints about my next employer. However, which makes more sense, walking back into a known bad situation, or making an honest effort at something new? While it will undoubtedly be inconvenient to start over, and the pay will certainly be less, I still have options open to me at this point that look more attractive than the alternative.
We pilots are often painted as greedy whores by our detractors, and apparently still thought of in that way by our management (witness the exorbitant bonuses and supplementary pay being thrown at those who were "loyal" to the company). However, our complaints about the pay scale had more to do with the inequalities in the way it was applied, and the fact that other companies had the advantage over us when competing for the best new hires. There were relatively few pilots who could not live comfortably on what they were making. In fact we'd never have been able to consider striking if our finances weren't reasonably secure.
-Stan-