aviationluver:
Notice I used the word pilots, we are not drivers. Whomever started referring to us as drivers, needs to be exhumed from the grave and slapped.
Quite right! A driver has to actually control his/her vehicle - your aircraft are driven by my software 99% of the time.
To get back on topic. From what I see at work here at the right side of the volcanic ash plume, and from what I used to see when I lived and worked in the UK, pilots are their own worst enemies. (Generalizations accepted).
Younger pilots will do anything, and accept anything thrown at them by the operators, just to get a seat on the flight deck. In the US now, some first-year FOs are barely above minimum wage (and it's a pretty low minimum here compared to the UK).
More experienced ones will do anything and accept anything that the operators throw at them just to move from the right-hand seat to the left-hand seat.
But I don't blame the pilots, I blame the flight schools/"universities" who grab the money and churn out wave after wave of eager pilots into an already saturated market. If you have furloughs at one end of the spectrum, where's the sense in flooding the other end with new talent?
For every new recruit who comes out of ERU and the like, your value, Mr Captain, Mr First Officer, decreases accordingly.
It gets even stickier when you consider the increase in retirement age from 60 to 65, and the fact that the value of pensions have been flushed down the tubes with bankruptcies and the recent economic collapse. Pilots who were looking forward to retirement, now can't afford to retire. So they'll carry on until they reach the mandatory age.
Add to this the fact that aircraft are getting easier to fly (to mis-quote a car insurance ad over here - "so easy a caveman could do it"), and your "value" as a pilot is going down the tubes.
Of course, none of this applies to military pilots, who will never be under-valued. What? Who mentioned UAVs?