Where was the public outcry when Lufthansa outsourced longhaul holiday charter (US and Carribean and SE Asia) via Eurowings to Sun Express Germany, who pay for a Captain on A330 85k€ a year? At least Norwegian pays 100k€ for a RCA, 125k€ for a Captain (including allowance) which is not super good but really not that bad for europe. EW got DOT approval right away with no opposition from US Airlines or Unions, so all this talk about terms and conditions and lowering the standards is hypocritical, with the true reason being protectionism and fear of competition of an Airline, who seems to do it right and grows rapidly. Every company has the right to make maximum use of the available legislation to cut their costs and before anyone now explodes, think of the immense benefits that all major US airlines are reaping now after they took advantage of Chapter 11 restructuring.
And again, contracted work is not ideal but i still fail to see how this contract differs in any way from other contracts that are offered through Rishworth (or your favourite broker) which pilots have happily accepted for years everywhere in the world. And talking about Terms and Conditions, I invite anyone to point me to another job opening in the EU, where you can actually earn that kind of money with a similar career perspective and the ability to live where you want (in the EU)?
To summarize, a way one can see the Norwegian contract is that it's much like a chinese lunch buffet. It's not super good, but it's not as bad as it looks ;-)