Wow this was a very interesting thread to find for me. I worked as a club instructor with the CFI and "upper committee" who fit most of the bully descriptions in the thread. What I am interested in is what people think about employees who have taken a personal grievance against their former employer.
My basic situation was that I was working as a "casual" instructor instructor at this particular organization, where what I mean by casual is that I got paid for the little flying I got (usually my students were stolen because "they needed to learn to fly with other instructors" - direct quote btw) and then whatever ground work I did was for free. I'm not actually complaining about that toooo much because I knew the industry was bad, and it was actually a flying job for a raw C-cat.
I did really enjoy it, even though I was working a 70 hour week over 2 jobs to pay my rent,
however the CFI was a real bully to me. Was constantly told that if I didn't do more free labour I would be fired, physically intimidated my by standing over my screaming at me, that he would get rid of me, etc. If another instructor and I didn't do something right, or even shared a job he would call us into the office, tell us to do something productive and then after the other instructor left he would give me another grilling. Then he would spend the rest of the day on trademe. He would awkwardly rearrange flight schedules to ensure I missed out on club activities etc.
Despite all this, I didn't want to leave, I really love instructing, and had a really good rapport with the students I had managed to keep
So eventually the CFI and the upper committee without consultation to the remaining committee decided to let "me go". They didn't about the redundancy meeting until after it was meant to take place. there was no support, and the day they told me turned out to be my last day working there.
They also decided to not call it redundancy, that way they didn't need to give me a full payout in accordance with my contract, and they hired someone else for cheaper less than 3 weeks later to do the same job. Charming huh?
Anyway getting to the point of this ramble/vent I took up a personal grievance against them, after which I will be heading to Australia so my question is: how much will this be counted against me? I have a glowing reference from the other job I worked at, however it is *ahem! mumble* at a fast food outlet. As a friend of mine described it, "we all know it happens in the industry, but what they did to you was just nasty"
Thanks to anyone who replies to this
