Work for free.
Actually the term stems from the Latin meaning "for the good," which means that you give of your skills free of charge for someone else's benefit. For attorneys, pro bono services are optional and are seen as a charitable donation to a party in need, but not so for airmen.
Actually the term stems from the Latin meaning "for the good," which means that you give of your skills free of charge for someone else's benefit. For attorneys, pro bono services are optional and are seen as a charitable donation to a party in need, but not so for airmen.
For decades now, airlines have paid their pilots hourly wages instead of the salaries that they deserve. Wages begin from around $16 to $24 an hour for entry-level positions at the regional airlines. Don't let these wages fool you, my educated reader. $24 dollars per hour may sound very lucrative for any line of work, but we're not talking about just any line of work, are we? I'm going to teach you a little bit about "duty hours" and how they differ from "billable hours." I hope you're sitting down for this.
Before becoming a CFI, I worked full time at a telephone call center in Salt Lake City. My department specialized in giving support and guidance to the elderly about their health care coverage and how to benefit from Medicare. I was in my early twenties, single, and making $9 an hour. Working 40 hours a week, that means I was living on $720 per two-week pay period before taxes. Not bad for a college kid. The job was pretty challenging, so we had a six week training course on everything medicare/medicaid before we were allowed onto the call floor to assist the customers. The only pre-requisite for the job was a high-school diploma. We got two fifteen minute paid breaks and one thirty minute unpaid lunch. On the busier days, we had hundreds of callers in queue so there was no dead time between callers- as soon as one call ended, another began. On the slower days, there was time between calls to chat with the co-workers, read books, do homework and so on. Regardless of the call volume, we all still got paid a flat $9 an hour from the time we logged into our stations till the time we logged off to go home with the exception of our lunch break. Just the way its supposed to be.
Now imagine that same call center job, but with the pay program of an airline:
I walk into work an hour and a half early for my daily employee safety briefing which even includes a meteorological briefing on the office temperature. After the briefing ends, I get dispatched to my computer terminal, which I carefully inspect to insure that they will perform to the highest standard during the day's business. Afterwards, I take my seat and go through the boot-up checklists. By the time I am due to take my first caller, I am all set. The time clock starts when the phone rings. I assist the customer, providing the highest standard of service, accuracy, and timeliness until the end of the call. Unfortunately, today is a slow day, so there aren't any more callers waiting in the queue. As soon as the call ends, the time clock stops. During the lull of activity, I disposition the notes of the previous caller, and wait for the next one. Finally, the phone rings.
I answer, and then the time clock starts ticking again.
I answer, and then the time clock starts ticking again.
The time passes. Despite being at work for four hours, the time clock only shows two and a half. Those fifteen minute breaks I took, the unplanned trips to the bathroom, even that time that I spent in the boss' office getting my performance evaluation all went unpaid because those hours were not spent in direct contact with the customers. Would you want to work at an office like that?
"Oh, but wait!" stammers my boss, "don't quit so soon, I'll make you a deal. I'll pay you your hourly $9.00 while you're on the phone, and to sweeten the deal, I'll pay you five and a half cents an hour for all the time spent in between calls! How does that sound?"
Pause. Let's revisit our word of the day, pro bono. Does this situation sound like you are giving freely of your skills for the benefit of another person? I think so. But in this scenario, that other person is hardly in need of your charity, quite the contrary. At the end of the day, you drive home in your station wagon while the boss takes off in his jag.
One of my CFI co-workers, whom i will refer to as Andy, put the pay system this way:
"JB, we're slaves." He told me one afternoon. I thought he was just trying to make a joke, so I agreed with a chuckle. "No," he continued "you, me, all of us CFI's are slaves, now ask me how I know."
"Okay, how do you know, Andy?"
"Tell me what the definition of a slave is," he said.
"Okay," I thought for a moment. "A slave is someone who is owned by another person and works at the behest of his master for no compensation."
"Wrong." Andy said, shaking his head. "A slave is someone who works for another person for no compensation, other than for food and shelter."
I had to admit, he had me there. From the plantations of the south to the ghoulags of Siberia, slave labor forces had always been provided with these two necessities of life.
Andy continued. "JB, I'm at work twelve hours a day and I only get paid for a fraction of those hours that I spend here. My paychecks total up to just barely enough to pay for my groceries and my rent. All those little extras, I pay for with my second job and my wife's income. The only compensation I get is literally food and shelter. Therefore, I am a slave."
I realized that he was right. My meager paychecks amounted to just barely enough to pay for our tiny apartment and the groceries. This particular employer charged my students $35 an hour for the time that I was instructing them, but only paid me $14 an hour. That means that I only took home forty percent of what my students were actually paying for my services. Slavery meets sharecropping, perhaps? On top of all this, the company refused to pay overtime because then it would be forced to recognize us as full-time employees- meaning benefits, sick-time, vacation time, etc., so we were always reprimanded for exceeding 38 hours per pay period and even threatened with immediate termination should we exceed that cap.
Most airline pilots are paid from the time that the cockpit door closes to the time that it opens at the destination. That means that the preflight, safety briefing, weather briefing, flight data entry into the FMS, and assisting passengers to their seats (the cabin crew's responsibility) all goes unpaid. Think about that next time you hold up the line to cram your bags into the overhead bins.
In preparation for this post, I spoke about this issue with a friend of mine who works at SkyWest Airlines. He said "...in a recent message from UAL management, which was passed on to us SKYW low-lifes, we were told that UAL was over-paying SKYW millions of dollars a quarter due to a violation of our contract with them (can you say B.S.?) that stated we get paid from the time the aircraft moves either by its own power or for pushback, until the aircraft comes to rest at its destination. Uh, did I miss something here? So now, ALL SKYW flights are paid from brakes released to brakes set, also known as block times. Hmmm. Not what I signed up for." SkyWest pays its pilots $1.65 an hour for all duty hours spent away from home, this is known as "per diem" pay... meant to fill in the gaps during layovers and between flights.
What this all boils down to is that my friend, whose contract says he gets paid $19.50 an hour, actually gets paid about $10.00 an hour after you adjust his income to match his duty time. Also worth mentioning is this notion of "premium pay" where many airlines will pay you one hour for every two hours (50%) spent on duty after you complete twelve or so hours of duty time. So if you work really really hard, management will do you the dignity of recognizing you as only half a man.
"Oh, but wait!" stammers my boss, "don't quit so soon, I'll make you a deal. I'll pay you your hourly $9.00 while you're on the phone, and to sweeten the deal, I'll pay you five and a half cents an hour for all the time spent in between calls! How does that sound?"
Pause. Let's revisit our word of the day, pro bono. Does this situation sound like you are giving freely of your skills for the benefit of another person? I think so. But in this scenario, that other person is hardly in need of your charity, quite the contrary. At the end of the day, you drive home in your station wagon while the boss takes off in his jag.
One of my CFI co-workers, whom i will refer to as Andy, put the pay system this way:
"JB, we're slaves." He told me one afternoon. I thought he was just trying to make a joke, so I agreed with a chuckle. "No," he continued "you, me, all of us CFI's are slaves, now ask me how I know."
"Okay, how do you know, Andy?"
"Tell me what the definition of a slave is," he said.
"Okay," I thought for a moment. "A slave is someone who is owned by another person and works at the behest of his master for no compensation."
"Wrong." Andy said, shaking his head. "A slave is someone who works for another person for no compensation, other than for food and shelter."
I had to admit, he had me there. From the plantations of the south to the ghoulags of Siberia, slave labor forces had always been provided with these two necessities of life.
Andy continued. "JB, I'm at work twelve hours a day and I only get paid for a fraction of those hours that I spend here. My paychecks total up to just barely enough to pay for my groceries and my rent. All those little extras, I pay for with my second job and my wife's income. The only compensation I get is literally food and shelter. Therefore, I am a slave."
I realized that he was right. My meager paychecks amounted to just barely enough to pay for our tiny apartment and the groceries. This particular employer charged my students $35 an hour for the time that I was instructing them, but only paid me $14 an hour. That means that I only took home forty percent of what my students were actually paying for my services. Slavery meets sharecropping, perhaps? On top of all this, the company refused to pay overtime because then it would be forced to recognize us as full-time employees- meaning benefits, sick-time, vacation time, etc., so we were always reprimanded for exceeding 38 hours per pay period and even threatened with immediate termination should we exceed that cap.
Most airline pilots are paid from the time that the cockpit door closes to the time that it opens at the destination. That means that the preflight, safety briefing, weather briefing, flight data entry into the FMS, and assisting passengers to their seats (the cabin crew's responsibility) all goes unpaid. Think about that next time you hold up the line to cram your bags into the overhead bins.
In preparation for this post, I spoke about this issue with a friend of mine who works at SkyWest Airlines. He said "...in a recent message from UAL management, which was passed on to us SKYW low-lifes, we were told that UAL was over-paying SKYW millions of dollars a quarter due to a violation of our contract with them (can you say B.S.?) that stated we get paid from the time the aircraft moves either by its own power or for pushback, until the aircraft comes to rest at its destination. Uh, did I miss something here? So now, ALL SKYW flights are paid from brakes released to brakes set, also known as block times. Hmmm. Not what I signed up for." SkyWest pays its pilots $1.65 an hour for all duty hours spent away from home, this is known as "per diem" pay... meant to fill in the gaps during layovers and between flights.
What this all boils down to is that my friend, whose contract says he gets paid $19.50 an hour, actually gets paid about $10.00 an hour after you adjust his income to match his duty time. Also worth mentioning is this notion of "premium pay" where many airlines will pay you one hour for every two hours (50%) spent on duty after you complete twelve or so hours of duty time. So if you work really really hard, management will do you the dignity of recognizing you as only half a man.
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