They were paid lower because they accepted to work at those wages.aviator773 wrote:I agree, there is a serious need to reduce the influence of unions. Having unions is important for any field but political affiliation of unions is the reason why some crew members slack off or consider themselves above the S.O.Ps. I won't deny that some members of the crew indulge in such activities as a habit but some are genuinely desperate too.
You're argument is some what valid, lower level of employees means higher salaries if the total salary expense is held constant. However, even before the PPP government gifted PIA with the dilemma of an excessive work force many departments in PIA were paid lower than most airlines in the region or even other companies. Remember there were rarely any smuggling cases before the Musharaf era when PIA was both profitable and paid good money to all of its employees.
Some of the work force needs to be let go but on an impartial basis. Right now if the government comes up with a lay-off plan I can guarantee you that employees in some way affiliated with the ruling party will not be touched and good employees who are actually concerned for the airline's well being will be the victims of such an action. Layoffs from 1998-1999 are a prime example of this which marked the beginning of the airline's current turmoil.
Here is another psychological concern. Both choices have 10 units of work to do.
If you have 10 people working and they all earn 10, less will slack off.
If you have 20 people working and they all earn 20, more will slack off.
With slack off I mean not properly working, because they've less work to do, so they indulge in other activities, illegal ones.
For example, I flew Saudi b747 and b777. What happens is, the crew quickly gives food, send everyone to sleep, go in the back and chill. Lets say 5 people are chilling in the back. Now imagine if there were 3 people who were chilling. Eventually they will run out of what to talk and go out and attend customers. This is bad example because 3 will be below safety standards, but we're keeping in mind that 5 crew should be available if crew doesn't force people to sleep. In that case, the crew keeps serving customers drinks etc and staying busy, whereas closing shades and telling people that drinks are in the back they can get themselves simply means they wanna chill more than serve. So if they want to close shade and ignoring safety standards, in that case 3 crew will be enough. Cuz honestly, it took 10 mins for crew to answer me when they weren't even doing anything, just chilling in back.