thank you wirgin blue! how i love to hear sane words spoken!
skyshow, you missed my point
I certainly understand what you're saying. Do I agree with it? No. But it is a reality that they will not negotiate on currently - just like the 28 day rosters.
do you think what YOU do for a living is worth $37000 as a starting wage?
i too have worked for other airlines, and understand the whole pay scale deal HOWEVER, where do you place the minimum? I can pretty much assure you that whatever pay scale you started on all those years ago, it was more than the equivalent of $37,000 - assuming you worked in the industry more than 10+ years ago. How can i say this with such surety you may ask? because when i started in the industry all those years ago, there was an award that we worked under, not an employee agreement. . 15+ years ago my base salary was $28,000 which went up by $1000 dollars each year i worked for the company - so, pay scale. factor in the cost of living et al, can you not see that wages have gone down in those years not up? Put it this way, the new proposed base salary is $26,673. thats almost 2 grand less than mine was 15 years ago. in addition, when i was earning that base salary of $28,000, i was doing less hours for it, with longer rest periods. How can you not get that this is a major hit we are taking? have corporate wages gone down in the last 20 years or up? please tell me why you think our wage should be on the continual decline while corporate types increase 10 fold?
I've previously worked for an airline with a TEN YEAR pay ladder, like Virgin's proposed four year pay ladder. The difference with Virgin Blue is they're introducing it NOW, not when they started nearly ten years ago.
and, if you decide to introduce a pay scale half way through the game, you don't LOWER the starting wage, you keep the starting wage as is and build from there i.e. in ten years from now if you stay with us, this is what you will be on...it is all about loyalty, not lowering the bar. the minimum wage doesn't ever get adjusted down, only ever up. please find me an example of when this hasn't been the case. for eg. first year out lawyers, doctors, accountants, teachers, secretaries, nurses, bankers, mcdonalds workers, supermarket attendants etc. don't earn less in the first year than those that started 10 years ago (i.e. 1998) did.
as for whether it has been talked about or not
With my personal experience, I would say there would be NO complications with crew among a flight. It wasn't even talked about!
you musn't be speaking to many crew as it has come up many times in my presence and has been mentioned in numerous roadshows as well. not to mention from those crew that have come over from jetstar for many reasons, that being one of them. morale around this has been a major sticking point at bars on overnights.
but again, what do YOU think your job is worth?