I am against them being under trained for the benefit of shareholder profits
Not just under trained but also this top level sanctioned policy of hiring the cheapest form of labour possible (indebted 21 year olds)...also ageism by proxy. The government might be interested in tackling this loophole exploitation, especially since unemployment is now at a 16 year high.
HR who know of no other system and deride GA and Military training without real knowledge
hit, nail, head
CTCs strangle-hold on pilot recruitment in this country (not just at EZY) has resulted in an anticompetitive price and policy fix that is screwing the lot of us. This would never be tolerated in other industries. I've heard people talk about a free market and that airlines can choose their sources of recruitment as they please. Ignoring the fact that these are very suspect (you scratch mine and I'll scratch yours) type relationships anyway, I think this is a very old capitalist manner of thinking and I can name many examples in recent years where major (mostly technology) firms have been forced to change their market behaviour due to circumstances not very different to ours.
If interested,
Competition Act 1998* - The Office of Fair Trading