Bandit650,
Good points and I agree, in fact I don't see much in aviation that is unique to aviation except the impact that the pilot can have on the business which is where collective bargaining becomes important and where flying for free is potentially so damaging.
I'm still (unfortunately) in IT as a consultant and am charged out at at three times the amount of my Indian colleagues and still doing, in theory, the same job. But I have the knack of being able to add 'value' (note the single quotes) at multiple points in the process primarily due to, as you say, experience.
The pilots lot, from what I can see I hasten to add, is not quite so flexible (chief, training and operation cross-over excepted). Apart from flying punctually and efficiently (the minimum requirement for the job) there is not much a pilot can do in the course of his normal duties to improve the commercial situation for an airline. An IT bod can have a bright idea and save the organisation £2M in one go (the fact it is usually the reverse is another issue). By and large, when a pilot needs to make exceptional decisions, it tends to result in negative stuff like diversions, delays, etc - they are made on safety grounds not commercial ones. On that basis, as an individual first officer, an individually negotiated contract as is usual in something like IT, must be difficult (FR for example).
After much recent pondering it seems to me that the notion of working for free is an individual decision, rather than the concept of wanting to join an industry based on what it has to offer in terms of T&Cs. Whether this strand of individually motivated T&Cs will undermine those higher up the chain I'm not too sure. At the moment it seems to create a two tier system with a T&C barrier at the appropriate vaguely useful experience level (end of line training?). A bit like an inversion, once you've climbed through the bump it is all blue skies...or so my personal theory goes
