Slavery In Aviation

"Captain Wubba" wrote in message |
| This is just silly. If your company wants you to do something you
| don't want to, you have the option of quitting. Slaves don't have the
| option of quitting.

Ah, I see. So if I demand that you give me all your money or I kill you,
then there is nothing wrong with that. It is simply a matter of your choice.
There is no coercion involved whatsoever.

I can see that I am dealing with people who are terminally silly here.
Enough of this thread.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
"Tom S." wrote in message
...

| "Forced"? Someone is holding a gun on them? Holding their family hostage?

Essentially, yes. Some employers tell their employees that they have to work
for free 'or else.' The 'or else' usually means your family suffers.

Well, CJ, there are nuances of 'force' and nuances of "family suffering",
though somehow I don't think someone who analogizes unpaid work and
murder is gonna see 'em *g*

There are also nuances of "work for free or else".

There are situations where an hourly employee is instructed to clock
out, but then asked to remain on the premises to complete a task.
WalMart is notorious for this. Employees who complain or refuse
may be fired or evaluated poorly. Since Walmart is sometimes the
major employer in small rural towns, the employee's family suffers.
Agreed. And the situation is usually not laid-out when the person
is hired: they are not told "you'll be expected to clock-out at
9 pm but remain until 10 pm stocking your area."

Then there are situations like that of many CFIs, where better-paid
work is available, but the person chooses to work as a CFI in order
to pursue career goals. He is paid per flight hour, but his employer
may require him to be on the premises at certain hours in order to
talk to people who call or walk-in about flight training and be
available to take them on Discovery flights. To me this is a far
"grayer" situation since the CFI himself has a lot of control over
how much of his time is unpaid. If he markets himself aggressively
and brings in new students, he'll spend more of that time flying and
being paid. If he's a good ambassador for flying and for the school,
he'll persuade more walk-ins to fly with him. And, usually, the
situation is explained to the CFI up-front before he is hired. It's
not as though he is (typically) greeted after the last flight of a
10 hr day and told "OK, clock out, now wash these three planes
before you go home"

Now maybe "Bob Dole" had something else in mind, if he's more than
just a troll. But the situation is, I think, not that different
from a number of other jobs (car salesmen come to mind) where the
employee is paid on commission, based upon the money he brings in
to the company. My grandfather bought a house and raised a family
and sent a daughter to college on commissions from insurance sales.
He wasn't paid for the hours he spent driving around between prospects
or clients. He wasn't paid for the hours he spent with prospects
who didn't close a sale. He wasn't paid for tallying his sales
at the end of the day or for attending meetings. Those were *necessary
adjuncts to the job he did*, which was to sell insurance and get paid
according to how much he sold. Through the heart of the Great Depression.
He considered himself lucky.

The mind boggles at the concept of "be paid according to your value
to your employer" as "slavery" or "force".

One of the things which ticks me off about young time builder CFIs
is that they're so sheltered and generally from such privledged backgrounds
that they think they're uniquely suffering and abused. Not surprisingly,
the ones I got along with best were those who had made a living at another
job for a while so that they had a sense of perspective (I don't mean
tending bar or waiting tables at night for extra money while living at
home and driving the car Mommy bought them, I mean actually supported
themselves for a while at another job).

Jay Honeck, are you watching this? I hope you appreciate it because
I imagine our views on these points aren't too different, as opposed
to if we were discussing Al Franken's terrifically righteous and
amusing book "Lies and the Lying Liars who tell them" (No, no, Jay,
NOT HERE! NOT HERE!)

Cheers,
Sydney

"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
"Tom S." wrote in message
...
|
|
| However, the topic needs to be discussed. There appear to be a number of
| deluded individuals that think being forced to work without pay is a
good
| thing. Personally, I think it is theft and, at bottom, an offense as
serious
| as murder.
|
| "Forced"? Someone is holding a gun on them? Holding their family hostage?
|

Essentially, yes. Some employers tell their employees that they have to work
for free 'or else.' The 'or else' usually means your family suffers.

I thought the "or else" was as in "or else work for some else where
you don't have to 'work' to sustain the business". Lots of big
businesses have gone bankrupt, eg. world famous Digital Equipment
Corporation, the employees sucked them dry...

Alternatively, let's adopt socialism, I mean communism. Did I say
that, Oh no… run....run...run...the commies are coming...

being a small business owner, couldn't resist.

"Sunil" wrote in message
om...
I thought the "or else" was as in "or else work for some else where
you don't have to 'work' to sustain the business". Lots of big
businesses have gone bankrupt, eg. world famous Digital Equipment
Corporation, the employees sucked them dry...


Off topic, but I can't resist this one. You don't know what you're talking
about.
First, DEC didn't go bankrupt. They were acquired by Compaq whilst still
solvent. Secondly, they failed because the market for their product (the
VAX)
dried up and they never found a replacement. And in the last few years they
had disastrous management which thrashed around and destroyed the
remaining value in the company.

I don't understand your comment about the employees. DEC paid average
salaries for their field. They did have excellent employee benefits,
entirely due
to the views of the founder (Ken Olsen), but if they had nickel and dimed
the
employees on benefits as most US companies seem to, it would not have
changed
the way the end played out. If they had in fact lingered on into bankruptcy,
maybe
it would have delayed it by a month - although thereagain maybe they
wouldn't
have attracted the high quality employees (who incidentally worked harder
than
in most companies, in my experience) and wouldn't have been so successful at
\
their height.

Incidentally Ken Olsen is still an active pilot (at least according to the
FAA),
although there's no evidence that he reads these groups.

John

"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...
"Captain Wubba" wrote in message |
| This is just silly. If your company wants you to do something you
| don't want to, you have the option of quitting. Slaves don't have the
| option of quitting.

Ah, I see. So if I demand that you give me all your money or I kill you,
then there is nothing wrong with that. It is simply a matter of your choice.
There is no coercion involved whatsoever.

I can see that I am dealing with people who are terminally silly here.
Enough of this thread.

If I have the *absolute* freedom to walk away from it, I certainly am
not being 'coerced'. Talk about 'silly people' here. There are
differences between being robbed at gunpoint and being asked to do
something you don't like doing at work, under penalty of termination
if you don't do it. Grownups understand those differences.

"C J Campbell" wrote in message ...

I can see that I am dealing with people who are terminally silly here.

My irony meter just pegged.

Sydney

(Sunil) wrote in message . com...

I thought the "or else" was as in "or else work for some else where
you don't have to 'work' to sustain the business". Lots of big
businesses have gone bankrupt, eg. world famous Digital Equipment
Corporation, the employees sucked them dry...

Um, Sunil, I think it's a mite simplistic to attribute
the demise of DEC to their employees. There were plenty
of other factors which arguably had much greater prominance.
And there are plenty of businesses whose employees had even
cushier deals who are still alive and well.

I feel a little sheepish about pointing this out, because
it's simplistic in a different universe than equating slavery
murder armed robbery and theft with unpaid work or unfair
employment practices.

Nevertheless.

Sydney

"Captain Wubba" wrote in message |
| If I have the *absolute* freedom to walk away from it, I certainly am
| not being 'coerced'. Talk about 'silly people' here. There are
| differences between being robbed at gunpoint and being asked to do
| something you don't like doing at work, under penalty of termination
| if you don't do it. Grownups understand those differences.

Grownups understand the difference between being asked to do something you
do not like to do, but which is part of your job, and being told that they
must work for no pay or they will be blacklisted from an entire industry.
The first is reasonable, the second is not.

I said nothing about guns. However, the difference between the threats is
only in degree, not in kind.

Grownups do not misrepresent others' arguments.

"Sunil" wrote in message
om...
..
|
| I thought the "or else" was as in "or else work for some else where
| you don't have to 'work' to sustain the business".

The question was never whether you should work. The question was whether you
should be paid for work. A capitalist would say yes. Communists are
notorious for not paying their workers.

The "or else" in the question was whether a business could ask you to work
without pay -- and if you refused, they would attempt to get you
blacklisted. I doubt that even you think that is reasonable. Then again,
maybe you are a communist.

On 2003-11-11 02:28:06 -0800, "Greg Chapman" said

Frankly, I'd fly for free to just build hours, assuming I was insured by th
company while doing so

Uh huh. And I suppose the bank would let you live in your house for free just to build lending experience, and the electric company would provide free electricity just to build electrical exeperience