Live data from Hacker News

DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

qz.com

21–30 of 164 posts

Re: DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

#22
post #14

A couple things to consider: * Hour restrictions for passenger transport are significantly more stringent than for freight. * Southern Air's fleet consists 737s and 777s -- not small planes. * These plans have to fly over and into major metropolitan areas. * Many parts of flying can be automated, but in the end, and for aircraft this size, you probably want a human operator in the plane for the sheer reason that they…

I think most people will agree that the $200k+ starting salary in the bay area is an anomaly. Everyone is doing everything to "fix" this problem.

If we care about safety, we prohibit them from doing things that are unsafe. If management tries to make them do things that are prohibited, we should make it easy for people to say no without repercussions.

Re: DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

#23
post #10

I thought that with all the safety regulations, cargo pilots were doing more or less the same number of hours that passengers pilots. In fact I read previously that pay was now pretty much aligned between the two, and that this previously unpopular profession among pilots was attracting increasing interest.

That i likely more because of plummeting pay for passenger pilots with the new budget airlines

Re: DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

#26
post #14

A couple things to consider: * Hour restrictions for passenger transport are significantly more stringent than for freight. * Southern Air's fleet consists 737s and 777s -- not small planes. * These plans have to fly over and into major metropolitan areas. * Many parts of flying can be automated, but in the end, and for aircraft this size, you probably want a human operator in the plane for the sheer reason that they…

I think most people will agree that the $200k+ starting salary in the bay area is an anomaly. Everyone is doing everything to "fix" this problem. If we care about safety, we prohibit them from doing things that are unsafe. If management tries to make them do things that are prohibited, we should make it easy for people to say no without repercussions.

The $200k starting salary in the bay area also is a myth. $100-120 is much more common as a first salary out of college.

Re: DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

#27
TL;DR "DHL HELL" from the subject means DHL is paying not as much as the author of the article, a pilot, would like. DHL has a lever over pilots, and pay decreases. My assumption would be that the building of the US war machine after 2001 increased the number of veteran pilots, increasing the trend over the last several decades of too many pilots.

Love how Americans put "great country" into every other sentence.

I assume Trump voters [author is veteran and highly probably voted for Trump] like free markets as long as it decreases prices for them as consumers, when it comes to their jobs they are socialists.

Also interesting the sprinkling of conspiracy theories "And most disturbing—it is becoming increasingly clear that DHL is trying to pull the strings from behind the scenes, using a complex web of ties to our industry to bypass legal checks against foreign influence [...]" - most probably because the US is the best nation in the world, so a foreign company can't act like this, so they "bypass legal checks against foreign influence [...]".

The author works for "Southern Air", a US company, btw.

Re: DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

#29
post #25

Unionize and do something about it. They are pilots! Well educated individuals. C'mon go help yourselves...

Unions sound nice in theory. But in practice, pilot unions work only for very senior pilots [1]. All other pilots in the union get paid much less and have worse working conditions. The detailed story about the effects of pilot unions:

http://philip.greenspun.com/flying/unions-and-airlines

[1]: Senior vs junior pilots gap is also the incentive for the airline owner to go bancrupt and start a new airline. So that there'll no senior pilots in the airline.

Re: DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

#30
post #13

Emo. No content. "US patriots, protect our labour achievements from this evil German company!"

Yesss, evil nazis taking over the country. I don't see the point of the article. Automated work and cheaper labour is searched everywhere to produce more profit. Only way for people to survive in this race is to develop themselves, educate, learn, specialize, make more value. Not to build walls.
Post reply on HN