Would you settle for this offer
Join Date: Nov 1999
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Perhaps when pilots saw these schemes coming in there could have been some action on their part to stop them being implemented, strikes etc. Thats what i was trying to say
As you will discover, pilots are no different from anybody else. We like to whinge and moan in the collective, but we are quite happy to jump at opportunities that benefit us as individuals. We all naturally pay lip service to the greater good and all that, but we all still have an overriding responsiblity to our families and ourselves. Just as can been be evidenced in this and many other threads, we are instinctively selfish and motivated by inducements. Certainly when we feel threatened we are happy to wrap ourselves in morality and the protection that our community either affords, or gives the illusion of affording.
When we are not personally threatened, there is little motivation to put ourselves, our families welfare, or our jobs in serious jeopardy, or indeed in any form of jeopardy, so naturally we don't. It wasn't that these deteriorations in the terms and conditions were not evident years ago. They were, it was just that it didn't affect us and wasn't likely to affect us on a balance of probabilities. The companies were not stupid. They didn't impose a radical shakeup. They took a medium to long term view, that by introducing new working practices at the entry level, they would complete the metamorphosis over maybe 10 to 15 years. It was a clever strategy. The incumbents didn't seriously object as they were unaffected. The new joiners accepted the new terms in the often misguided belief that after a period of time the terms would somehow revert back to those that existed previously. They didn't. In fact there was no motivator for improvement because too many people were snapping at the new joiners heels to take up those jobs if they didn't want them. The would be "hoppers" or career climbers who sought to use one company as a a stepping stone to another, often discovered that their aspirational target adopted similiar practices making the move less practical, less desirable and often less possible.
These new practices then moved further down the chain, and manifested themselves in the forms of pay for training, pay for uniforms, pay for car parking and other forms of previously included administration costs. Much of what happened, not only eroded the basic T&C's but shifted the employment risk largely from the employer to the employee. The salary structures (often attractively packaged,) evolved so that a much greater element only became payable if the employee worked a very high number of hours to achieve it. Forget about sickness, you wouldn't be able to afford it any more!
Now the basic training structure is reinventing itself so as to place the entire risk burden on the applicant. Indeed the structure has become a new profit center, offering things that an individual can pursue that might never have been a consideration in the past. This thread is but one example. The current exceptionally weak economy has only served to accelerate the process that had already been started some time ago.
This is the new reality, and it is probably very naive to think that it will change for the better in the short to medium term (10 to 15 years). Certainly the economy will evolve for the better or worse, but as long as there are enough people willing to accept the new realities there is unlikely to be any radical change. Without doubt there is clearly a great deal of denial in the marketplace, many wannabes believing that things will revert to a previous point in history if only they accept the current status quo?
Given the dynamics and inherent uncertainties of any market, and couple that with the ever present laws of supply and demand, the optimistic outlook is that eventually more and more people will not view flying as a sufficiently attractive career. The smart money will move elsewhere and the supply side will weaken. An increase in demand at some future point will then probably cause T&C's generally to improve, but I think that it will be many years in coming. One of the wild cards is the perception of status that this job still elicits. That will distort in favour of supply and in itself delay the normal onset of any improvement.
The answer I am afraid as always lies with the buyer, you! If and when you stop buying the product, the seller will have to adjust the offer. As long as you are still queing up to put down your money, they will find ever more imaginitive ways to relieve you of more of it. It has always been easy to sell a dream. The reality of ownership may be much more onerous, particularly if the golden goose stops laying those golden eggs, or you can't sell those golden eggs because every other Tom, Dick and Harriets expensively purchased goose is laying them to?
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Actually, why not ask Reluctant and his colleagues to strike in favour of the next wave of wannabees? Reluctant? What about it? How many of you guys and girls will tell MOR you're not working unless he starts giving out free type ratings?
We're still waiting for the answer on this one aren't we?
Solidarity among the SSTR-ers. Is there any?
Edit. Having read this thread I think I have an answer. For some of them anyway http://www.pprune.org/terms-endearme...ng-pool-2.html
Last edited by Flintstone; 18th Feb 2009 at 23:35.
