Refuse BONDage
OK, while I understand that there is the legal aspect to the bond because one has signed it, but I think that the bond system should be abolished. It is just yet another way of holding pilots in a Company that may or may not be (probably not) decent.
Our Profession has been degraded over the last 20 years or so because we accept this treatment. How about if things were the other way around ie we had the whip handle? Generally we are nice to the management because we are too stupid to realise they will do us down on a whim!
So lets say you are bonded for £20,000 over 3 years for instance. The Company obviously think that is the cost of the rating - fair comment. So if a pilot joins a Company already rated then they, the Company, should pay the pilot £20,000 over 3 years. The pilot has earned his rating at another Company, with the associated experience (time on type). Fair? Yes, and if enforced would stop the manipulative pen pushers in thier tracks.
A couple of friends of mine have joined other lines of business, bus driver, train driver. They are not bonded, yet we the 'professionals' are.