I am intrigued as to what the Norwegian contract will look like. I thought that they might have taken advantage of offering the low annual vacation time that seems to be standard when you first start flying for a company over here.
Before resigning from your current position and relocating to Del Boca Vista, FLL, carefully read the agency contract to discover the “taken advantage” stipulations and clauses as an outsourced employee. Additionally, when securing your pay-to-fly bank loan (non 787 rated pilots must pay before joining Norwegian), you should check with your bank if temporary and tenuous employment precludes any mortgage loan.
A post on another thread proficiently summarizes the current and unsavory working environment at Norwegian:
http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearme...ml#post9542626
The disturbing management culture is not exclusive to shorthaul. Kjos and his henchmen continue to freely undermine labor rights and labor principles via direct employment circumvention. Alarmingly, this abhorrent labor model is now effectively state sponsored. The Norway Transport Minister, Solvik-Olsen, was in Washington last week to promote the Kjos “methods” in Norwegian’s US permit application (the longest waiting period ever):
http://e24.no/naeringsliv/norwegian-...ngton/23822161
Meanwhile, groups representing Norwegian's agency pilots continue their delusion of management “commitment” to consultation and cooperation. Given the ongoing reports of unsettled labor relations and conditions, I am curious as to any tangible effectiveness of the purported “Trans National Agreement in response to the challenges created by the complex business model that is being developed by Norwegian” - as stated by the Norwegian Pilot Group on its website:
http://norwegianpilotgroup.org/
It’s difficult to have empathy for a pilot group that boasts “an alliance uniting ALL Norwegian pilots” but accepts a continued undermining of labor rights and labor principles without a significant and collective response.
Complex employment circumvention schemes in aviation, as used by Norwegian Group Airlines, are best summarized in an EU Commission funded report:
https://www.eurocockpit.be/sites/def..._15_0212_f.pdf
“Civil aviation legislation does not take into account the prevalence of different forms of atypical employment and outsourcing in the rapidly changing civil aviation industry. Moreover, social legislation is not able to tackle the new phenomena, leaving room for elaborate subcontracting chains and elaborate social as well as fiscal engineering. As a result, the competition nowadays is a true race to the bottom, which affects fair competition and worker’s rights as well as raises important issues in the field of safety and liability.
It need be noted that lacking general transparency and oversight in the aviation sector by labor inspection authorities render it highly difficult to distinguish between the legal reality and the defacto conditions crew members are subjected to”
Couldn’t have said it any better……