Originally Posted by
GS-Alpha
Personally I'm happy to see the FHR return because I've been short changed by several thousand pounds per year ever since FPA arrived. I never did understand the argument that it is good for when you are sick or on a conversion course. I'd rather stick my couple of grand of extra earnings in the bank each year and have an emergency fund for if I am unfortunate enough to become sick. Mortgages; yes I suppose that will take a bit more discussion with the banks, but I always found BA's mortgage certificate perfectly satisfactory before. I did not see an increase in what I was allowed when FHR first disappeared, so why do we expect a reduction now?
Personally I would rather have no variable pay whatsoever, we are not blue collar workers on a piece rate. We work to a contracted amount of hours per year - call it CAP or real hours it makes no difference. We should not need to be bribed to come to work and the concept of measuring how hard we work by the hours flown is somewhat specious anyway. Hours spent in a uniform might be a better metric or perhaps sector pay. It all depends whether you are a long haul pilot where hours are king, or a short haul pilot where sectors may be better. Either way the only people that really benefit by variable pay are the companies that can manipulate the establishment downwards knowing that they can rely on sick people coming in to work when they really should not for that part of their salary that is variable. The company would, no doubt, like a return to a large proportion of variable pay for that very reason. Just because we have always had variable pay does not make it a good concept.