Seniority - is it time to get rid of it?

[baswell]

entitle them to jump the queue here in Australia

What about the airline's entitlement to hire any one they please, like in any other industry?

I congratulate Anthill on his DEC; it's the perfect thing to do for both the expanding airline and after 15 years as FO, I am sure you are more than qualified for the job! Not to mention that I reckon you jumped the sinking ship in time. You may have some of your old captains as your junior FO before long! ;-)

[Capn Bloggs]

Lack of control in the workplace has been linked to coronary disease, muscular skeletal problems, fatigue, depression, anxiety and other health conditions.

Dunno what you're complaining about. Stay where you are and then sue when all of those afflictions strike you down.

Where are you on the seniority list in your outfit, Baswell?

[Oktas8]

In all this, I think only one person has mentioned the difficulty of assessing competence or technical merit, if you're going to promote based on merit. I think this difficulty is the only valid reason for the seniority system, when every pilot is doing the same job in the same way for a long time. So by all means promote based on seniority if it is really too hard to objectively assess merit.

It is most unfortunate that the god "seniority" is used to justify all sorts of workplace injustice at some airlines. The happiest and most productive organisations are generally based around the principle that everyone has to share all the work. Then seniority is used only for deciding who is best equipped to make difficult decisions requiring experience and judgement.

[baswell]

Where are you on the seniority list in your outfit, Baswell?

I am number 1, and so are Shagpile and SeaMoss. As the most senior members, we also run the union and in our EBA have negotiated completely flexible rosters for all senior personnel. As such, we have complete personal discretion in choosing which 16 hours we work in each day.

[my oleo is extended]

I enjoy my seniority and the privileges it brings. I worked hard for it and I don't intend on giving it up anytime soon. If LHLisa drops back to part-time then she should also drop further down the 'privileges level' also. Sorry Lisa but it's time to give it a rest, the system works very well for most of us. Besides, it is part of our culture. Jimmy Bowtie looked after Darth, then later Darth looked after Jimmy. Darth looked after Elaine, and in the near future Elaine will look after Darth. Its a basic systematic process based on mates rates, who you know and length of service. This flows down to Pilots, Engineers and Cabin Crew. It's perfect!
So at the end if the day Lisa you are an aviation waitress, just serve the food on either class, keep the ****ters clean, secure the cabin, do a demo and bring me my 'skinny flat white with 2 sugars' (no eye drops in the drink please) and all is dandy!
Cheers

[porch monkey]

Ah ****, here we go!

[superdimona]

Imagine the disaster if every industry operated on seniority. Rather then merit, the people at the top get there by warming their seat longer.

You're a businessman - why bother working overtime to clinch that million-dollar deal, Fred next door started a day earlier so he'll get promoted sooner.

You're a scientist, and you think you have an amazing idea, but it will be a ton of extra work to try it? Screw it, you're moving up the ranks as soon as Joe retires, and putting in the hard yards won't change that.

You're a Mechanic with twenty years of experience at a Holden dealership, but they've announced they're in financial trouble and everyone's getting a paycut. The Ford dealership across the road is booming and needs extra help - but if you change jobs, you'll get the same wage as newly minted mechanic. Holden gets away with it because they have you by the balls and they know it.

If the seniority system actually helped conditions as a whole companes would be desperately trying to get rid of it. Instead they're exploiting a quirk of human nature - "I had to do it, so do you".

[LHLisa]

Remember the melbourne to launceston flight in may 2003? The crew was excellent, the csm was experienced , it was handled well. Do tech crew see my point in the safety aspect here? Tech crew should want crew who are experienced in working in all areas of the cabin. And yes we all carry eye drops at all times


The aviation waitresses on that Mel - Lst flight prob saved the tech crews lives that day, as well as everyone else's.

[ranmar850]

In all this, I think only one person has mentioned the difficulty of assessing competence or technical merit, if you're going to promote based on merit. I think this difficulty is the only valid reason for the seniority system, when every pilot is doing the same job in the same way for a long time. So by all means promote based on seniority if it is really too hard to objectively assess merit.

Which is pretty much what I said in my earlier post. Just how do you sort the impressively-experienced and competent from mere time servers in a seniority-based system? As pilots, if you are getting from a to b and back again, delivering a complete aircraft in accordance with all the regs and company policy, you are doing your job. Until the S**t really hits the fan one night with multiple sytem failures in IMC, you don't really know what he is worth? And more time in the right-hand seat probably equates with more ability to handle this. As an occupation, very different criteria to something which requires, say, fault finding or system analysis abilities, where downtime is BIG money, millions of dollars per hour. Someone who is known within an industry for his wide skills base and ability to get the exceptional done in a timely manner will walk into a job over the top of someone who may have been there longer, just doing the minimum to keep a job. And rightly so, don't you think? Or do you think that "walk-in" should be made to wait/denied the money he is really worth because old Joe has been here forever, always supported the union, and would be upset if the "walk-in" were paid more or put into a more senior position? Different scenarios.
Maybe everyone should go through some fiendishly difficult sim time on a regular basis and be rated?
I can see by some replies that there are those who love the system, now they are at the top of that particular pile, and will fight tooth and nail to retain it, mostly for their own benefit.
I shall now don my Cat 4 Arc Flash protection suit.

[porch monkey]

Fail to see the relevance of that flight Lisa. It would be great to have everyone experienced in all facets of the job, but where do you get that experience? Everyone has to start somewhere, you don't just suddenly become experienced. So it isn't possible to have experience all throughout the cabin as you imply. Anyhow, the person you are talking about, after the experience and his treatment at the hands of the company, took his skills over to the red team. Got paid more and is a highly respected CS these days. If you're so unhappy with your treatment where you are, then leave. Others have, and made a good fist of it, seniority or not.

[squarebear]

[QUOTEImagine the disaster if every industry operated on seniority. Rather then merit, the people at the top get there by warming their seat longer.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that is really quite a simplistic take on it all.

Seniority only gets you the chance to apply for the position. Seniority does not mean you will automatically be selected nor does it mean you will pass the training to the required standard.

In effect the industry IS merit based, at least with tech crew.

[QUOTE]What about the airline's entitlement to hire any one they please, like in any other industry?
/QUOTE]

Baswell

some of the points being made to this thread really have got to the point of just posturing, but for something that may have some meat jump over to the post on D&G Reporting Points at

http://http://www.pprune.org/dg-p-reporting-points/482227-skywest-va-employing-foreign-capts-atr-ops.html

I would imagine that there are probably some guys that might rightly
take a little exception to your view.

Anyway, good to see that there are guys out there that keep the company line.

Cheers

[LHLisa]

Porch Monkey the situation currently exists whereby senior cabin crew go to work and month after month only work their favorite position. They work at one particular door, week in, week out, year in, year. These are the very senior crew. If you are happy to have those crew not need to engage any of their mental capablities, and be on automatic pilot every time they get onboard an aircraft, then I guess thats your call.

However I think having crew who can react quickly in different environments might be a good thing should another crazy with 2 wooden stakes (or worse) come on board. Cramming the night before eps where safety equipment is located throughout the aircraft in order to pass an exam is not the same as knowing where the equipment is.

[porch monkey]

Think you missed my point. Reread the part that says "experience". Not all cabin crew have it. They have to acquire same. That takes time. Frankly, i and most others don't care that much about it, as long as you can do your assigned jobs, wherever that may be in the cabin. If you can't, or won't, then most captains i know ave no compuction at offloading you. Seen it done, several times now. You seem to think people are born with it. What you describe may occur at your workplace, don't presume it does at others.

[Roger Greendeck]

There are essentially two reason to keep the existing seniority system: how can you separate pilots all doing the same job and decide who is worthy of advancement any other way and to stop nepotism/ 'brown nosing'. (There is a third reason for those who are already at the senior end and that is to maintain their entitlements but that is rarely so blatantly put).

Firstly there are methods to assess people's capability other than datal seniority. Any system is open to abuse but there is no reason that reputable airline cannot accurately assess the performance of staff. The check and balance on this I will cover in a moment.

The second is nepotism/ 'brown nosing'. This can only flourish where the ability of staff to move is restricted.

Imagine for a moment if there was not automatic entitlements from datal seniority. Employers will have to compete to attract and keep staff. In the event you feel your employer is not being fair withs it's treatment of you, you can take your skills and leave. There will, of course, be times where you can't do this immediately but over time bad employers will not keep their staff.

When it comes to negotiating new agreements we have more to bargain with because experienced, high quality staff can leave and go to a job that has better terms and conditions.

We see this in regional and GA where captains can and do move to better paying jobs. A significant number of pilots recently moved from Qantas to Jetstar because they did not have to start at the bottom. I doubt many would have even gone for an interview if they had to start as a first year FO.

Whilst, as with any large change, there will be winners and losers in the long run the only people the current situation is hurting is us, not the companies. If we change en mass it will improve our position over time. The continuous erosion of our terms and conditions shown the current situation is not working.

[LHLisa]

I am appreciative of all the comments and points of view posted here. I did not know previously that the 767 pilots now share the Hawaii trips, or that 737 pilots have rotational seniority. I may not be able to change what seems to me to be an unfair system, but that does not mean that I should not have a go at it. I don't like exploiting my co-workers, which is what I feel like when I work with NZ crew who have no seniority, or the handful of crew who are junior to me, and I do believe that an ocean is made up of single drops of water. Anyway thanks again.

[LHLisa]

Someones post here also lead me to finding out that senior crew are abusing their power by almost always taking the better breaks, and by avoiding work positions they would prefer not to do. Our EBA does not cover breaks, and it clearly states that all crew should remain proficient in all work positions, and that Duty free should be done by all crew in economy, not just the junior suckers, and senior crew on reserve are not senior to any crew planned to operate on a flight . Funnily enough the union has been happy for these abuses of the EBA conditions to go on for a very very long time. The union told me it is the companies fault that these violations of the EBA have been occurring for the past decade plus, saying the company has not developed a computer system to deal with it. However obviously if this matter was leading to breaches of the EBA disadvantaging senior crew the union would never have allowed it to go on for years and years. The terms hoodwinked, duped and shafted (but not in the good way) spring to mind.
I think the union do do a lot of good, and I definitely support the union movement. However on this issue I think the union is failing us.
Can I just add to those here that think seniority is great and are entrenched in what they know is an unfair prehistoric systemMen used to own their wives, divorce was illegal, and aboriginals were classed as animals. The times change . Stop being selfish and making the other guys in the flight deck like you slightly less .It's bad for CRM! Please don't hog all the best trips all the time at the very least. It's bad for morale.

[LHLisa]

Ok I know a lot of you are sick of me on my bandwagon about this topic. But, I just thought I would let you know - The alternative team "the integrity team" in our cabin crew election has apparently announced they will change from a seniority system to a fair share system. The election only has a week to go, so who knows what will happen. But I guess it shows a lot of people are passionate about change.

A tech crew member I sat next to paxing recently made me laugh when they told me about how when they started flying the senior tech crew wanted them to walk ahead of them through the terminal , scattering rose petals in front of their feet, while they carried their log books for them. Of course we all know thats an exaggeration but it made me laugh a lot, and I had been awake for 22 hours.

As a nation we are hopefully about to end the structural ineqality and discrimination stopping gay people from marrying. Hopefully the discrimination of seniority based cabin crew rostering will end soon to, or at the very least be vastly altered to be fairer for all.

[porch monkey]

Dear God woman, is there anything else you'd like to compare with your pet hate, which SEEMS to be seniority? So far you've included gays, the greens, labour government, liberal government, the EU carbon tax and other subjects in your rants about seniority, fairness and god knows what else. We get you don't like it. Did they have seniority when you joined the company? Thought so. If you're half as good as you seem to think you are, why don't you pack up and join the opposition, just like GK did. I joined a company that already had seniority. I considered it, and still went ahead. I have no complaints. As I have already pointed out, some seniority systems work fine. You simply shouldn't presume that everyone else believes what you do.

[Jack Ranga]

Gen y bro

Ever heard the story about the Youngbull and the Oldbull, Lisa?

[LHLisa]

I don't presume anyone thinks the same way I do - ( well maybe 1.7 million Australians at the last election, but thats another story). But I think this is a relevant topic in our industry. No one is making you read this thread? Or are they testing you on it now at your sim days?

As I have said I am appreciative to everyone for the info they have shared here. I could just sit on my hands and complain about the unfairness of the system I have worked under for 10 years, or I could be proactive and try to change it.


If more people spoke out about fairness and equality then the world would be a fairer place. It think it is becoming more that fair and equal, slowly, with time. I am really pleased Porch Monkey and jack that you have read so much of what I have posted, as the sharing of our ideas is one of the major instigators of social and work place change.