Every bit as permanent as the ex employee's of XL airways, Globespan, bmibaby to name a few who employed their pilots directly.
They receive sick pay, holiday pay, private medical*, pension, uniform, crew meals, mobile phone allowance, ID travel, sim checks on working days, positioning on working days, hotel & food ( B&B ) out of base. BALPA agreement with OSM ( UK) with crew council made up of pilots flying for Norwegian, not unnamed pilots to "protect" them from intimidation and certainly not 'zero hour' contracts
* from January 2017
Could be a lot worse, interesting route structure, with winter seasonal volunteer options to fly out of the Caribbean to the East coast of the US + Chicago/Milwaukee based charter flights to Jamaica & Mexico
This is of course for the 738 fleet.