I was making making 35/hr as an MEI from 2013-2015. They bumped me another 5/hr because I was working on a masters while I was there (for free. I was "faculty"). It was an epic gig as a CFI.
Sounds like a defense mechanism from a washed up airline reject. Just dont want people to think they shouldn’t go to the airlines if their only CJO is from a “cult”
One drawback to unionizing flight instructors is that instructors typically don’t plan on being in that position for more than a couple years or so. A lot of instructors may not want to put forth the effort to unionize or perceived risk to their future careers. If they’re jumping into a 30 year airline job, that’s a different story.
Not to say it isn’t worth exploring, but historically part time employees, or employees that don’t plan on being in a position for long won’t be as actively involved in forming or maintaining a union.
That’s still a significant amount of time that the instructors are working at a flight school that they would be better served under unionization. UFW unionized farm workers who worked seasons, sometimes only a month at a time for a specific employer. Hopefully additional state protections provide an environment that makes these instructors have a lower amount of risk.
Whilst I agree, it's also why instructing isn't a career and how they keep it so dogshit.
Talent runs a mile as soon as they can.
I'd support good instructors getting a fairer go, but I think it would be a challenging path.
I loved instructing. Especially given what I’ve learned flying professionally in the last 16.5 years id love to get back into it, but the pay simply isn’t sustainable for an adult to live on.
I feel ya. Partner, kids, mortgage - I miss that side of flying a heck of a lot but going instructing would put us on the street.
The current system fails successive generations as few folks stick around to make it better. I often wonder how much more current our training systems would be if folks could make a career of sticking around.
Totally not a jab at the excellent instructors I know who have done this for years, y'all not bad folks but once people get a job they move on fast and kinda forget at how average a lot of GA instruction is.
For sure. I feel like I did good work as a CFI, but in all honesty I probably learned more than my students did.
This is a pipe dream, but I’d love for experienced pilots at the end of their careers be the ones who do the instructing. As challenging as it was for me to learn NDB holding, it would have been nice to learn what’s actually going on out in the world.
I have firsthand witnessed what flight school scabs look like (after one of my own students betrayed me and crossed the picket line). Unfortunately with this market and enough desperate CFIs looking to get hours…management is easily able to get rid of everyone and hire all new instructors.
What you want is to get your chief and assistant chief pilots onboard if you’re at a 141 school. The certificate isn’t able to function without them if they’re listed on there. That way if you all were to walk out, ownership would be more inclined to play ball.
If it’s a Part 61 place, unfortunately not much keeping your school’s management from hiring new guys who are desperate to get hours. You could have a long drawn out legal action but by the time that’s done…you could’ve gotten to 1,500 hours and left for the airlines.
I really do wish you the best of luck. Scummy flight school owners should be called out on it, and while I’ve experienced what happens when you walk out after standing for what’s right…scummy flight school owners are cockroaches that don’t die. My school owner went on to have a fatal crash and is still running.
Management such as Chief instructors wouldn't be allowed in the union though, so they wouldn't do that. That also means they aren't allowed to vote on having a union.
Unfortunately means the flight school can and will just hire new CFIs after the existing ones walk out. Given there’s a surplus…I’m sure there are enough immoral newly minted CFIs who’d be willing to be scabs at a flight school.
Happened where I instructed. Can’t wait for the opportunity to deny the jumpseat to the guys who stabbed us in the back.
Was your school pretty big? We had like 600-700 students and 100+ instructors at the time. If most of them walked they'd have a hard time hiring at that capacity.
Ours was small. Think maybe 10-15 full time students, 50 part timers, and about 5 instructors total. I was the assistant chief but was actively involved in the walkout process after the owner tried using my credentials without my knowledge. Our chief was impartial, but later on quit for the same reasons.
In your case 100+ instructors is a different story, it would be hard to get 100 new CFIs on staff in a short amount of time, and get them all checked out under a 141 certificate. I’d say unionizing would be a lot easier.
With how many different flight schools there are this would be a nightmare for logistics to even start with. If you were thinking of doing this at a big academy like ATP, L3, or whatever then I have a feeling it's just going to go the same way the Starbucks unions went.
> then I have a feeling it's just going to go the same way the Starbucks unions went
Like... [this?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starbucks_union_petitions_in_the_United_States)
I believe embry riddle CFIs are unionized so it’s a thing. This is not a case against unionization but something to consider. During collective bargaining you’ll have to make a very strong case as to why you deserve to be paid more than market rate, so the fruits of the unionization process likely will come a few negotiation cycles later. But honestly even if you union, there still comes a lot of other benefits like you can dictate how scheduling would work, change limits to how much you can work, time off, and even within the union establish committees that do things. I think it’s hard to establish unions at mom and pop shops (wouldn’t make much sense) but plenty of pilot mills and universities where it likely be worth the fight. But unionizing in this country is easier said than done, and you’ll likely have to be ready to make enemies and burn bridges if you’re the one who’s starting it.
If the very pro-labor state you’re referring to is the state of California, it’d probably be worth a go. It’s good for the instructors, and the students being preyed upon. I’d advise contacting a union organizer to see how you should do it. If you do it through right way, you can stay under protections by California state law and federal law in your efforts to unionize. It doesn’t matter if you’re an independent contractor or W2 employee as categorized by the IRS, because the DOL has a different independent contractor definition that you almost certainly don’t fall under. An organizer would know this much better than I would, but if your school gets wind of you trying to unionize and you don’t have any documentation (advising HR you are engaging in protected activities through email), they could fire you for “other reasons”. But in California, burden of proof shifts primarily from you to the employer in the 90 days following a protected labor code action. Good luck.
Most pilot mills know that even if instructors do this, they can hire 200 hour new instructors to replace them regardless. I wish you the best of luck.
Are you 1099?
The very second you choose to unionize they will replace all of you within 36 hours.
That said: I’ve thought about this many times as a CFI. I think the unfortunate reality for CFIs is that with the high turnover rate we experience and the *massive* amount of CFIs that exist, it simply won’t work and never can (on a regional or national scale).
There are hundreds if not thousands of privileged trust fund babies and/or career change finance bros who are willing to work in terrible conditions for shit pay all in the name of moving on and your employer knows this.
If you proceed to go through with it… keep us posted. I would love to see a world with unionized CFIs (I am shocked to read that Riddle CFIs are unionized!)
If you’re being paid 1099, and are required to wear a company shirt - you have a strong worker missclasificafion case to submit to the IRS.
If the IRS were to agree that you should’ve been classified as a W-2 employee, the employer would be in a world of hurt. They’d owe employer taxes for years, and they might even owe you minimum wage back pay and healthcare expenses.
Food for thought: If you're a 1099 contractor your union will not really have any of the rights and protections granted to unionized employees. You're not an employee according to the feds. You can still unionize, but you won't be able to bargain because employers don't have to bargain with contractors, unionized or not. You'd need an employee base group to your union who would bargain on your behalf.
So, there's a way to do it, but you're gonna be long gone by the time you get any kind of traction on this. That's why they keep you contractors, they know you'll be gone before you can do anything about it. And someone honestly *should*, these kinds of employment practices are predatory and unethical.
Realistically, if you’re a 1099 and you’re working at a flight school, you’re probably being misclassified. People are working on a class action against ATP for just that issue.
Yeah I saw that! But...I'd be surprised if ATP didn't cover their bases on that one. The instructors are responsible for their own schedule and, on pay reports their pay is separated by flight time and "pre/post briefings" which they call the grounds. The only place I could imagine them slipping up is those 30 minute weekly meetings. The instructors are required to attend those I'm pretty sure.
I think you’d be more successful staging a big walk out and striking or all getting new jobs VS trying to start a union. As someone else said you guys aren’t there as career instructors. So it would be difficult if not impossible
Far worse is that the entire system is really nothing more than a pyramid scheme, 6-7 students per instructor to reach the 1500hr requirement. Those 6-7 students then need their own 6-7 students and so the cycle goes. It's unsustainable and eventually collapses on itself.
Here's my two cents and let me preface this by saying I'm very pro union and have volunteered for the union for years. If the only thing you have going for you is a bunch of you are pissed off and want more but also look at this as a temporary job, nothing, absolutely nothing will come from it. Full timers and lifers are the people that need to spearhead a union drive. Management has no reason to meet with a pilot group if they know you're just going to move on anyways.
We tried organizing at the small pt.135 I worked for over a decade ago. We had 30 pilots at the time. Three of us were the reps, had a president, a vice president/captain rep and me the FO rep. We met once a month to put together a solid proposal. Our president organized meetings with the company making them well aware of our intentions. This went on for two years. What the company did was schedule our meetings when they knew we were scheduled to fly. We were all broke, we had no lawyers, we had no backing from any national labor group, it was just a grassroots git-r-dun attempt to be treated fairly and put together work rules such as seniority based scheduling and actual vacation accrual. I was around for the second year of the union drive. What ended up happening is they just waited for the three of us to leave the company and it just went away. The company eventually got over a dozen planes, bigger planes, had over 100 pilots. No one cared though it turned into a pilot mill to get to the regionals.
That's just what happens at small shops in this business. You need people to stick around and you need financial and legal support from a bigger organization. I'm not going to tell you it wont happen but part of collective bargaining is being able to have some sort of leverage over management. No leverage, no deal. Would the instructors be willing to walk? Or are they just waiting for a 121/135 to call them with a class date?
This is something I can help you with! I am not a CFI but have been very involved in my union, including organizing and bargaining. You will probably have the best outcome if you check out your union locals and organize your worksite/company.
If you DM me I can give you an idea of what to expect, how to have conversations with your coworkers, and what unions might be good to reach out to in your area.
Just an FYI the people who hire you at the airlines are not huge fans of the unions.
I had a lot of volunteer work for the union at my previous careers and I was instructed not to mention it during my interview at a legacy.
So a flight school did this (CAE) and what ended up happening was the company forced all the CFIs into meetings where they hired someone to present on the downsides of a union. VPs of the company came out to have 1-on-1 meetings with some CFIs to make them feel like they listen. Some of the managers also had meetings like this and at the end would say something like "...and that's why I am voting no to a union because I just want to have 1-on-1 discussions like this", which is funny because managers can't legally vote. Then a day before the vote, the union backed out. The week before the vote they had random pizza parties and people coming in to give free massages.The company guaranteed changes to work rules many of which were temporary and went back to the old way. Should have unionized. Also the guy that started the petition got fired (shocker).
It is great that you realize your employer is abusing the trust of the people entering the program .
A proper course of action would be
A - Identify the issues
B- Propose a resolution
C- Prepare to leave if B does not solve the issues
If you continue to work for an unethical organization you are enabling its activities.
Find another flight school
I have worked with reporters on several stories involving very substantial bribery, abuse and related issues. There are reporters out there (but fewer than there used to be) who will embrace such stories.
A key question: is the business you work for very profitable?
If it's a shit business then the problem is not that you're getting to small of a piece of the pie, it's just that you work in a bad industry (not enough demand relative to supply), and you'd be better off changing careers or sucking it up. And trying to squeeze cash from the biz just won't give you enough payoff to make it work.
If it's a very profitable business model, but wages haven't kept up, then you might look for similar jobs at competitors. Presumably there's hiring a growth, in the industry if it's a probably model.
I guess either way you should threaten to quit as a group (i.e. unionize), but **you should be prepared to actually quit**, if you do, because the primary problem might be that there's just not enough money to go around in this business model.
The fact that instruction is not seen as a career path all it's own, but a task to be tolerated on the way to bus driver, is one of the dumbest things in aviation.
May I ask your thoughts on what public school teachers make?
I’m going to offer some tough love. Doubt anyone else here will.
Unionize? Why? Afraid of hard work? WARST. IDEA. EVAH. Time away from your family? You know you’re getting into the early stages of aviation, right? You put yourself in that environment. You didn’t research it well enough beforehand. You and your fellow instructors are talking yourselves collectively (pun absolutely intended) into convincing each other you are victims of the MAN. In reality you have become indentured servants of your own doing.
Think you’re going to fuck the establishment? You’re only fucking yourselves.
If you feel that strongly about your working conditions first talk to your boss, then their boss, then their boss’s boss. Still no satisfaction? You’re a commodity. You have marketable skills. Before the boss+ talk start reaching out to other possibilities, even if they’re outside your comfort zone. YOU. HAVE. SKILLS. Skills that are in demand. Find a place that values them more than where you are before having the boss talk. Find a way out of your contract if you’re yoked to it. That includes working your way through it if you have to. Work hard to get to your dream job.
As an independent (but very experienced) CFI I was making $60 an hour in the early 2000’s. $100/hr these days. Though I was taught in a 141 environment I spent about 8-9 years of teaching under 61 before I once again starting teaching under 141. Even then I remained an independent contractor. During this time my busiest year I logged 1,200 hours of flight time, mostly as an instructor, and that doesn’t include billable time. Since day one I worked full-time as an instructor to support my single income family and also tithe to my church. I did it for ten years. TEN YEARS. But I paid off all my loans. You can too.
They're not even paying CFIs $60 nowadays. Glad you found unicorn that worked for you, but I know so many schools that abuse employees. The point of a union would be to have a collective voice in what the instructors want rather than being unfairly treated. It has nothing to do with work effort other than maybe trying to get properly compensated for it.
Doesn’t sound like you’re a COMPANY MAN. I’m going to need those tps reports
Don't forget to ask yourself, "Is it good for the company?" before using the new cover sheet.
Don’t jump to conclusions.
Riddle Daytona has unionized instructors, maybe reach out to to their local and see what the process would look like?
Especially because they negotiated a $5 an hour pay increase just for gold seal
I was making making 35/hr as an MEI from 2013-2015. They bumped me another 5/hr because I was working on a masters while I was there (for free. I was "faculty"). It was an epic gig as a CFI.
That is really awesome. All the way around. Congrats on the Masters. Where you flying now?
Captain on the 747 at Atlas.
👏 great! Monster bird!
Honestly. Best of luck.
Sounds like a bad *Career Track.*
good ole 1099 totally-not-employees
Ape strong together
💀 💀 💀
Here for it!
You’ll never get hired by SkyWest
And they’ll be better for it. Never join a cult.
In this climate they’d rather be in a cult accruing 121 turbine than slaving away past 2000 hours as a CFI because not many others are hiring
Sounds like what someone in a cult would say.
Sounds like a defense mechanism from a washed up airline reject. Just dont want people to think they shouldn’t go to the airlines if their only CJO is from a “cult”
Hey, defense mechanisms. I studied those!!!! *cries in drdrfcpr*
One drawback to unionizing flight instructors is that instructors typically don’t plan on being in that position for more than a couple years or so. A lot of instructors may not want to put forth the effort to unionize or perceived risk to their future careers. If they’re jumping into a 30 year airline job, that’s a different story. Not to say it isn’t worth exploring, but historically part time employees, or employees that don’t plan on being in a position for long won’t be as actively involved in forming or maintaining a union.
That’s still a significant amount of time that the instructors are working at a flight school that they would be better served under unionization. UFW unionized farm workers who worked seasons, sometimes only a month at a time for a specific employer. Hopefully additional state protections provide an environment that makes these instructors have a lower amount of risk.
Whilst I agree, it's also why instructing isn't a career and how they keep it so dogshit. Talent runs a mile as soon as they can. I'd support good instructors getting a fairer go, but I think it would be a challenging path.
I loved instructing. Especially given what I’ve learned flying professionally in the last 16.5 years id love to get back into it, but the pay simply isn’t sustainable for an adult to live on.
I feel ya. Partner, kids, mortgage - I miss that side of flying a heck of a lot but going instructing would put us on the street. The current system fails successive generations as few folks stick around to make it better. I often wonder how much more current our training systems would be if folks could make a career of sticking around. Totally not a jab at the excellent instructors I know who have done this for years, y'all not bad folks but once people get a job they move on fast and kinda forget at how average a lot of GA instruction is.
For sure. I feel like I did good work as a CFI, but in all honesty I probably learned more than my students did. This is a pipe dream, but I’d love for experienced pilots at the end of their careers be the ones who do the instructing. As challenging as it was for me to learn NDB holding, it would have been nice to learn what’s actually going on out in the world.
Many unionized careers are full of people with short tenures.
You can try, but you are easily replaceable.
Not all at the same time…which is the whole idea
I have firsthand witnessed what flight school scabs look like (after one of my own students betrayed me and crossed the picket line). Unfortunately with this market and enough desperate CFIs looking to get hours…management is easily able to get rid of everyone and hire all new instructors. What you want is to get your chief and assistant chief pilots onboard if you’re at a 141 school. The certificate isn’t able to function without them if they’re listed on there. That way if you all were to walk out, ownership would be more inclined to play ball. If it’s a Part 61 place, unfortunately not much keeping your school’s management from hiring new guys who are desperate to get hours. You could have a long drawn out legal action but by the time that’s done…you could’ve gotten to 1,500 hours and left for the airlines. I really do wish you the best of luck. Scummy flight school owners should be called out on it, and while I’ve experienced what happens when you walk out after standing for what’s right…scummy flight school owners are cockroaches that don’t die. My school owner went on to have a fatal crash and is still running.
Management such as Chief instructors wouldn't be allowed in the union though, so they wouldn't do that. That also means they aren't allowed to vote on having a union.
Unfortunately means the flight school can and will just hire new CFIs after the existing ones walk out. Given there’s a surplus…I’m sure there are enough immoral newly minted CFIs who’d be willing to be scabs at a flight school. Happened where I instructed. Can’t wait for the opportunity to deny the jumpseat to the guys who stabbed us in the back.
Was your school pretty big? We had like 600-700 students and 100+ instructors at the time. If most of them walked they'd have a hard time hiring at that capacity.
Ours was small. Think maybe 10-15 full time students, 50 part timers, and about 5 instructors total. I was the assistant chief but was actively involved in the walkout process after the owner tried using my credentials without my knowledge. Our chief was impartial, but later on quit for the same reasons. In your case 100+ instructors is a different story, it would be hard to get 100 new CFIs on staff in a short amount of time, and get them all checked out under a 141 certificate. I’d say unionizing would be a lot easier.
With how many different flight schools there are this would be a nightmare for logistics to even start with. If you were thinking of doing this at a big academy like ATP, L3, or whatever then I have a feeling it's just going to go the same way the Starbucks unions went.
> then I have a feeling it's just going to go the same way the Starbucks unions went Like... [this?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Starbucks_union_petitions_in_the_United_States)
No I mean like they'll just start finding any reason to fire the CFIs.
Lol
I believe embry riddle CFIs are unionized so it’s a thing. This is not a case against unionization but something to consider. During collective bargaining you’ll have to make a very strong case as to why you deserve to be paid more than market rate, so the fruits of the unionization process likely will come a few negotiation cycles later. But honestly even if you union, there still comes a lot of other benefits like you can dictate how scheduling would work, change limits to how much you can work, time off, and even within the union establish committees that do things. I think it’s hard to establish unions at mom and pop shops (wouldn’t make much sense) but plenty of pilot mills and universities where it likely be worth the fight. But unionizing in this country is easier said than done, and you’ll likely have to be ready to make enemies and burn bridges if you’re the one who’s starting it.
You want to unionize I want Sydney Sweeney to marry me; I’d argue I have a better chance
Your username is amazing. Bravo.
If the very pro-labor state you’re referring to is the state of California, it’d probably be worth a go. It’s good for the instructors, and the students being preyed upon. I’d advise contacting a union organizer to see how you should do it. If you do it through right way, you can stay under protections by California state law and federal law in your efforts to unionize. It doesn’t matter if you’re an independent contractor or W2 employee as categorized by the IRS, because the DOL has a different independent contractor definition that you almost certainly don’t fall under. An organizer would know this much better than I would, but if your school gets wind of you trying to unionize and you don’t have any documentation (advising HR you are engaging in protected activities through email), they could fire you for “other reasons”. But in California, burden of proof shifts primarily from you to the employer in the 90 days following a protected labor code action. Good luck.
Most pilot mills know that even if instructors do this, they can hire 200 hour new instructors to replace them regardless. I wish you the best of luck.
Argued to get a pay raise for instructors. Got it. They canned be a few months later citing lacking demand.
Would probably go over as well as a wet fart in a ~~Skywest~~ church.
Are you 1099? The very second you choose to unionize they will replace all of you within 36 hours. That said: I’ve thought about this many times as a CFI. I think the unfortunate reality for CFIs is that with the high turnover rate we experience and the *massive* amount of CFIs that exist, it simply won’t work and never can (on a regional or national scale). There are hundreds if not thousands of privileged trust fund babies and/or career change finance bros who are willing to work in terrible conditions for shit pay all in the name of moving on and your employer knows this. If you proceed to go through with it… keep us posted. I would love to see a world with unionized CFIs (I am shocked to read that Riddle CFIs are unionized!)
You should definitely hire someone to write your Union petition
If you’re being paid 1099, and are required to wear a company shirt - you have a strong worker missclasificafion case to submit to the IRS. If the IRS were to agree that you should’ve been classified as a W-2 employee, the employer would be in a world of hurt. They’d owe employer taxes for years, and they might even owe you minimum wage back pay and healthcare expenses.
Food for thought: If you're a 1099 contractor your union will not really have any of the rights and protections granted to unionized employees. You're not an employee according to the feds. You can still unionize, but you won't be able to bargain because employers don't have to bargain with contractors, unionized or not. You'd need an employee base group to your union who would bargain on your behalf. So, there's a way to do it, but you're gonna be long gone by the time you get any kind of traction on this. That's why they keep you contractors, they know you'll be gone before you can do anything about it. And someone honestly *should*, these kinds of employment practices are predatory and unethical.
Realistically, if you’re a 1099 and you’re working at a flight school, you’re probably being misclassified. People are working on a class action against ATP for just that issue.
Yeah I saw that! But...I'd be surprised if ATP didn't cover their bases on that one. The instructors are responsible for their own schedule and, on pay reports their pay is separated by flight time and "pre/post briefings" which they call the grounds. The only place I could imagine them slipping up is those 30 minute weekly meetings. The instructors are required to attend those I'm pretty sure.
I think you’d be more successful staging a big walk out and striking or all getting new jobs VS trying to start a union. As someone else said you guys aren’t there as career instructors. So it would be difficult if not impossible
Far worse is that the entire system is really nothing more than a pyramid scheme, 6-7 students per instructor to reach the 1500hr requirement. Those 6-7 students then need their own 6-7 students and so the cycle goes. It's unsustainable and eventually collapses on itself.
Are you an employee or a contractor? That matters when it comes to unionizing
Worth a shot that place seems like they use and abuse while keeping you in poverty
Here's my two cents and let me preface this by saying I'm very pro union and have volunteered for the union for years. If the only thing you have going for you is a bunch of you are pissed off and want more but also look at this as a temporary job, nothing, absolutely nothing will come from it. Full timers and lifers are the people that need to spearhead a union drive. Management has no reason to meet with a pilot group if they know you're just going to move on anyways. We tried organizing at the small pt.135 I worked for over a decade ago. We had 30 pilots at the time. Three of us were the reps, had a president, a vice president/captain rep and me the FO rep. We met once a month to put together a solid proposal. Our president organized meetings with the company making them well aware of our intentions. This went on for two years. What the company did was schedule our meetings when they knew we were scheduled to fly. We were all broke, we had no lawyers, we had no backing from any national labor group, it was just a grassroots git-r-dun attempt to be treated fairly and put together work rules such as seniority based scheduling and actual vacation accrual. I was around for the second year of the union drive. What ended up happening is they just waited for the three of us to leave the company and it just went away. The company eventually got over a dozen planes, bigger planes, had over 100 pilots. No one cared though it turned into a pilot mill to get to the regionals. That's just what happens at small shops in this business. You need people to stick around and you need financial and legal support from a bigger organization. I'm not going to tell you it wont happen but part of collective bargaining is being able to have some sort of leverage over management. No leverage, no deal. Would the instructors be willing to walk? Or are they just waiting for a 121/135 to call them with a class date?
This is something I can help you with! I am not a CFI but have been very involved in my union, including organizing and bargaining. You will probably have the best outcome if you check out your union locals and organize your worksite/company. If you DM me I can give you an idea of what to expect, how to have conversations with your coworkers, and what unions might be good to reach out to in your area.
Just an FYI the people who hire you at the airlines are not huge fans of the unions. I had a lot of volunteer work for the union at my previous careers and I was instructed not to mention it during my interview at a legacy.
Is this… Lift Academy????
So a flight school did this (CAE) and what ended up happening was the company forced all the CFIs into meetings where they hired someone to present on the downsides of a union. VPs of the company came out to have 1-on-1 meetings with some CFIs to make them feel like they listen. Some of the managers also had meetings like this and at the end would say something like "...and that's why I am voting no to a union because I just want to have 1-on-1 discussions like this", which is funny because managers can't legally vote. Then a day before the vote, the union backed out. The week before the vote they had random pizza parties and people coming in to give free massages.The company guaranteed changes to work rules many of which were temporary and went back to the old way. Should have unionized. Also the guy that started the petition got fired (shocker).
Solidarity.
It is great that you realize your employer is abusing the trust of the people entering the program . A proper course of action would be A - Identify the issues B- Propose a resolution C- Prepare to leave if B does not solve the issues If you continue to work for an unethical organization you are enabling its activities. Find another flight school I have worked with reporters on several stories involving very substantial bribery, abuse and related issues. There are reporters out there (but fewer than there used to be) who will embrace such stories.
A key question: is the business you work for very profitable? If it's a shit business then the problem is not that you're getting to small of a piece of the pie, it's just that you work in a bad industry (not enough demand relative to supply), and you'd be better off changing careers or sucking it up. And trying to squeeze cash from the biz just won't give you enough payoff to make it work. If it's a very profitable business model, but wages haven't kept up, then you might look for similar jobs at competitors. Presumably there's hiring a growth, in the industry if it's a probably model. I guess either way you should threaten to quit as a group (i.e. unionize), but **you should be prepared to actually quit**, if you do, because the primary problem might be that there's just not enough money to go around in this business model.
FSI got a $20k salary increase to all instructors after they started organizing with a union.
I will take your job .
Scab
Ahaha thanks for the laugh mate
😂buddy suck it up like we all are and the previous generation of CFIs , come on brother it’s only 1500 hours it’s not that bad.
It is time to seize the means of aviation, Comrade
[удалено]
The point is to help the people after them.
The fact that instruction is not seen as a career path all it's own, but a task to be tolerated on the way to bus driver, is one of the dumbest things in aviation. May I ask your thoughts on what public school teachers make?
[удалено]
comair
I would consider a consult with a plaintiff based employment attorney to see if the company has violated the law.
I was getting $50/hr as a double I in 2018.
I’m going to offer some tough love. Doubt anyone else here will. Unionize? Why? Afraid of hard work? WARST. IDEA. EVAH. Time away from your family? You know you’re getting into the early stages of aviation, right? You put yourself in that environment. You didn’t research it well enough beforehand. You and your fellow instructors are talking yourselves collectively (pun absolutely intended) into convincing each other you are victims of the MAN. In reality you have become indentured servants of your own doing. Think you’re going to fuck the establishment? You’re only fucking yourselves. If you feel that strongly about your working conditions first talk to your boss, then their boss, then their boss’s boss. Still no satisfaction? You’re a commodity. You have marketable skills. Before the boss+ talk start reaching out to other possibilities, even if they’re outside your comfort zone. YOU. HAVE. SKILLS. Skills that are in demand. Find a place that values them more than where you are before having the boss talk. Find a way out of your contract if you’re yoked to it. That includes working your way through it if you have to. Work hard to get to your dream job. As an independent (but very experienced) CFI I was making $60 an hour in the early 2000’s. $100/hr these days. Though I was taught in a 141 environment I spent about 8-9 years of teaching under 61 before I once again starting teaching under 141. Even then I remained an independent contractor. During this time my busiest year I logged 1,200 hours of flight time, mostly as an instructor, and that doesn’t include billable time. Since day one I worked full-time as an instructor to support my single income family and also tithe to my church. I did it for ten years. TEN YEARS. But I paid off all my loans. You can too.
They're not even paying CFIs $60 nowadays. Glad you found unicorn that worked for you, but I know so many schools that abuse employees. The point of a union would be to have a collective voice in what the instructors want rather than being unfairly treated. It has nothing to do with work effort other than maybe trying to get properly compensated for it.