Just looking at some of the guys who lost their asses and took major concessionary contracts to help keep their companies afloat, I don’t blame anyone who is a rabid unionist.
A former furloughee from another airline who was working in our training center recounted an encounter with a chief at his former carrier, post bankruptcy:
‘you know you’re missing your hat?’
“Yea, it’s probably hiding with my pension.”
Everyone is making money now; that might not be the case in the future. Get what you can while you can and sock away for a rainy day.
You are looking at one of those guys who took a 30% pay cut to stay out of bankruptcy. It was the right thing to do at the time. But after every other major airline had been through bankruptcy, some more than once, our time came anyway. Hard to compete with competitors that get released from many of their financial obligations and walk away from pensions through bankruptcy, and you are still paying full freight to each and every creditor. I was never furloughed, or lost much seniority in the many mergers and acquisitions that have occurred over my career. But I am going on 24 months over two periods in disability where in my benefits amount to a 60%+ pay cut and no opportunity to fund a retirement barely two years away. I also spent a quarter of my career on B scale. I know what a union can do for you. I know how they operate. I am thankful for the improvements they have brought to my career. I appreciate the volunteers. But once section 6 negations get underway, Both side lie and misrepresent like the big dogs in DC.
Isn’t that, by definition, market rate?
I'd say no. Market rates are set by a free market with participants free to charge what they want and pay what they want. With two major unions controlling negations for the vast majority of pilots in America, and a seniority system that discourages pilots from individually withholding their labor and taking it to someplace that treats them better, it isn't really a free market in labor. And we can not forget that what makes unions effective, collective action to include strikes, makes them more powerful in the short term then the market for airline tickets. More to the point, given what I said, your post indicates you think market rates are simply what you ask for. That is without question wrong. Market rates are the most common price for a particular good or service based on quality, supply, demand, and service. If I am a baker and have bread to sell, I can put whatever price on it I want. If I put a price of $21.00 a loaf, that isn't market rates. I will be reminded of that when the landlord kicks me out of my building for not paying rent because I am not selling bread. What I get paid by the airline is not based on the quality of my work, and only loosely on supply of pilots, since none of us are leaving for another airline due to seniority, or getting out of the business. The baker can fire rude counter help and bakers that make crappy products. He can lower his price. Unions either prevent, or effectively prevent those vital elements of a free market. And, with multiyear union contracts the labor market, as it is, is effectively frozen with rates set for years by a piece of paper and not market forces that may vary over the course of the contract.