Until recently, I worked for a major airline (I quit for a better job), and I’ve seen this sentiment too many times on this sub, to a point where I felt like saying something: you shouldn’t cheer for pilots just because they are unionized and “working class” and “should get what’s theirs”.
They are not friends of any labor movement or any work reform. Pilots have 10 times more in common with board room directors and c-level executives than with the working class. They are bourgeoisie in uniform.
Some facts to back it up:
- U.S. airline pilots (both regional and major) start at a 6-figure salary. Not a bad start if you ask me
- those pilots’ comp can reach upward of $400k a year at the tail end of the career, while their work hours are reduced to 2-3 days a week, flying easiest and most desirable schedules and destinations
- in the U.S., pilots are over 90% men and over 90% white (and that’s generous: 95% would be a more fair number). They also skew much older than general population. Not very representative in any way. It’s a old white boys club.
- politically, US pilots skew red (check electoral maps for towns near Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta where pilots are known to settle at higher rates). This means that politically, they are likely not on board with work reform ideas.
- whatever “good on them to get what’s theirs” they extract from their airlines is done at the expense of other non-unionized working class employees: airline industry is not steadily profitable, and has high costs on jet fuel, equipment purchase/lease/maintenance etc. Pilot comp is a huge chunk of an airline’s P&L, and when it comes down to cutting costs, airline execs won’t cut their salaries, they won’t be able to do anything about jets or the fuel, and they won’t be able to do anything with pilot comps, and so the only people left are all the other non-unionized employees, especially the hourly staff who are already underpaid and overworked, and job and food insecure from the get-go. And airlines will do anything to prevent them from unionizing, too.
- let’s be honest, a pilot job is not that difficult. It does require a lot of skill and years training and experience, but once there, it’s a fairly comfortable gig. All the woes about pilots being overworked and tired should be taken with a grain of salt: they are not pulling double shifts at a fast food restaurant (they literally can’t).
I don’t mean to vilify pilots. Hell, in another life I’d love to be a pilot, maybe. I’m just saying that a lot of people are confused the nature of this job and confuse pilots for part of the movement.
TL;DR Just because pilots are unionized workers doesn’t mean they are part of the working class and share the burden.
(Throughout the post, any reference to pilots implies U.S. pilots only, as the situation is viewed from the lens of US economic system and the working class struggle and work reform in the US)