sort of contradicted yourself there.
Hmm, not really. I see unions as a necessary evil, but I refrain from labeling or even worse,
excluding them because of their political associations/views.
So what if Unite associate themselves with Labour? So what if they are "left wing?" They can be Church of Scientology for all I care (
), as long as they get the job done! When the managing directors of several
profitable airlines (mind you, I'm not talking about a loss making BA here!) pays themselves big bucks in bonuses whilst shafting pilots by 'employing' pay-as-you-go cadets with 100K debt to a bank, then there's something
seriously wrong with a) the industry and b) the unions for letting them get away with it!
There
needs to be a credible counter weight to balance this way of thinking, or else we all
will be working for a bus drivers wages sooner than you can say: "where the f**k did my salary and T&C go?!"
Like I said, unions are a necessary evil. I do
not advocate the French/Italian/Greek-style unions, but I also believe that the old fashioned way of a 'gentleman-like' (i.e. mature, soft, BALPA-like) way of dealing with management is unfortunately completely outdated. Perhaps this gentleman-like approach still works okay for pilots in BA (or the banking sector
), but in the low-cost sector this definitely doesn't work, just look at the various threads on this forum regarding EZY, pay-2-fly scams and other airlines...
The world has changed a lot since the glory days of BALPA and it's time to wake up and smell the coffee!