BARKINGMIND
I will be e-mailing him with the link to this thread, but I don't hold much hope for a sympathetic reply, as he is a governing party whip and therefore has to toe the party line. However, if all pilots concerned with the deteriorating working conditions hassled their elected reps with this issue, it may provoke some sort of reaction?
There is the problem again, only few will follow your advice. And this single action (to contact their elected reps) will achieve nothing, if not supported by further media responsive actions. I do not know the system in other states, here in Germany a citizen has the right to write a petition to the german government. I was part of a mass petition in similar (military) matters about 30 years ago. The answer to all of us was polite, but useless to the case. Only when we went public and the journos started to pick up the line, our case received some attention.
If the system hurts you, you have to be ready to hurt the system.