prariegirl was right on when she said:
Take the emotion out of this and put it in a secure place and hire professionals to fight this fight. That is precisely what your competitors are doing
(Others have said it earlier too, I'm pretty sure.)
Now, I was still in school in '89 and without wanting to bring
that up, I have to because it's part of a point I'd like to make...
I remember
21 years ago standing at the bus stop, reading a piece of A4 paper that someone had pasted to a telephone pole. It was titled: "What the pilots are fighting against" and listed a whole host of stuff that meant nothing to me at the time - I was just a school kid! But I saw a lot of other, older people reading it too.
Predominately (also as others have mentioned here), the general public has a perception of the industry that is closer to
Alice in Wonderland than
Reality - I'm sure you'd agree!
How about a campaign to raise awareness of some of the "other" stuff?
GA awards lower than average wage in this country (some so low they are almost unliveable)
Operators constantly testing out "what they can get away with" - and who is ultimately responsible? The PIC...
PICs nearly a "de-facto" regulator, due to CASA's poor performance in many areas
Loss of medical on any number of possible reasons = career over
Now, primarily BYO endoresement
Finally - companies are not satisfied with all that, they now want to send your job overseas, to get the labour cheaper
I'm sure you all have other points to add here.
And has anyone sent any letters to their MPs or union yet? I'm seriously interested in feedback.
Breakfastburrito penned a good "action plan" to follow on from the meeting, are we following it?!
Victor Two
Geez, glass (more than) half empty mate!! So you opted out and reckon that was a good move - glad it worked for you... Your reasons are probably personal but not really relevant to us here. Anyone who has been in this game for more than a minute has probably considered doing that too. But we're still here, and want to make the best of it. I would say that people generally just want a fair go, and are happy enough if they get it. They don't then go out hunting for more. (Company CEOs might be an exception)
Can we "win" - or change anything? I really don't know, and neither do you. You can postulate or whatever, sure. But that's pretty irrelevant too.
I do know this -
I'd rather do as much as I can now, and accept the result knowing that I had a crack, than put it all in the too hard basket, accept whatever happens (or be forced out of the game), and never know what we might have been able to influence or change.
CR.