black list

[fire]

strange question i suppose, but is there any "official" black list for pilots who commit offences or simply just irritate management?

[Yarpy]

Not a strange question at all. Informal blacklists do exist against pilots who 'irritate' management. In the UK Flight Operations Directors communicate at various levels. If a pilot broke a contract, argued over a bond or cost the company a lot of money by delaying (legitiamately) too may flights it is easy for the airline to be spiteful. Very simply an FOD would pick up the phone to another airline a pilot might be seeking employment with. They can, and do, say what they like off the record. I've seen it done and the effects on the individual employee can be devastating. I.e. several years out of work.

[Semaphore Sam]

There are many 'blacklists'. Opening Pandora's Box, what lists still exist against 'strikebreakers' over the last 3 dacades? Are such union 'antiscab' llists still active?

[Yarpy]

I once flew with an Aussie who had been caught up in the infamous pilots strike (or should I say dispute?). He told me that he would never work in Australia again. The same applied to his children.

It's a vicious industry if you get on the wrong side of it.

[Semaphore Sam]

My previous job in the Middle East had me in contact with wonderful Aussie pilots whose lives (and their families') were turned upside down by the 'dispute'. This conflict was decided at the highest governmental levels, by politicians who thought pilots would never be supported by 'working class' people. They were right; politics created a blacklist still functioning after all these years. The lesson...choose your battles carefully and wisely, and plan ahead. Justice never trumps political power.