It's easy to see why people are so emotional about this subject. We've all invested huge amounts of time and money into getting something we want, and then we see our dreams being shattered by a few "selfish" people who have enough money (from previous career/donated by daddy/left over from the lottery win after buying the mansion and the Ferrari) who are prepared to do something which we can't afford to do.
Unfortunately, though, this is how the laws of supply and demand work. There are currently more pilots than there are jobs for pilots. If there's more oil than there is demand for oil, oil prices go down. If there's more gold than there is demand for gold, gold prices go down. In fact, if there are more bananas than demand for bananas, supermarkets will put bananas on special offer. And if there are more pilots than there is demand for pilots, the "price" that it costs the airline to "buy" a pilot will go down. This will scare some of us away, convince airlines to hire a few of us where they may not have been able to afford to beforehand, and given time a status quo will be achieved again - albeit a slightly different (e.g. lower paid) status quo than the previous one. BALPA are there to keep an eye on things, but they can't change the fundamental way a free market economy works, as much as we'd like them to.
A completely different way of looking at the problem:
All of my flying time so far has been unpaid. In fact, I've actually had to pay for it!
I admit I only have a PPL, I'm not allowed to be paid for flying. But I fly because I love flying, not for the money. If I wanted money, I'd stick with my current career in IT. And once I get my ATPL, even if I'm lucky enough to find a job flying big jets, I'll still happily pay to fly light aircraft, simply because I love flying.
Ok, so this isn't a fair comparison at all. The flying I do at the moment isn't "work", and I certainly couldn't afford to fly for free if I didn't have another well-paid job. But I'm not aiming to get my ATPL to be a well-paid pilot. I will be taking a substantial pay cut when I get my first flying job, but I'm prepared to do this because I love flying. How much of a pay-cut would I be prepared to take? Well, as much as necessary, so long as I can earn enough to pay the mortgage, pay the bills, buy food... If I didn't love flying as much, I might not be quite so prepared to do this.
Working for free? No thank you - I can't afford it. But it's not quite as silly as it seems at first, and I really can't blame people for being "selfish" and working for the lowest amount they can afford, if they love flying enough - I'd do exactly the same if I could afford it.
FFF
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