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DHL pilot alleges poor labor practices that are spreading throughout industry

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

#71

Post by yAnonymous »

artumi-richard wrote: post #15

That reference about DHL being German doesn't sit nicely with me. Germany is much more socialist than the USA.

Are we?

The health insurance system is corrupt and medical services are arguably on the decline.

When you don't have money or a job, you can get basic benefits and in return get treated like a dog. For many people that is still better than in their home countries, so they come here.

The middle class is getting smaller, because they're the ones paying for all this.

Is milking the middle class from all ends socialist? Doesn't feel like it.

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

#72

Post by megablast »

dx034 wrote: post #60

> We work long hours, fly in dangerous conditions and go through years of training, but we do it because we understand that our work is vital to keeping our economy humming. No. Pilots become pilots because they love flying and because it pays well (mostly the former). Haven't heard of any pilot who chose the job because it's important for the economy.

> they love flying

Do they really? I mean, if you love driving, do you become a bus driver?

It is not like it is flying your cessna around the place.

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

#73

Post by liotier »

dx034 wrote: post #60

> We work long hours, fly in dangerous conditions and go through years of training, but we do it because we understand that our work is vital to keeping our economy humming. No. Pilots become pilots because they love flying and because it pays well (mostly the former). Haven't heard of any pilot who chose the job because it's important for the economy.

> Pilots become pilots because they love flying and because it pays well (mostly the former)

And increasingly so - pilot employment is no longer a sinecure but I have nevertheless seen pilots sacrify considerable career opportunities to get to fly professionally.

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

#74

Post by noir-york »

sqeezy wrote: post #70
noir-york wrote: post #65

The lack of empathy in the comments is disconcerting. The post is a bit light on details (though the example given of flying 23 hours back-to-back continental flights is terrible if regular) the post deserves better than: 1. Pilots fly for fun. You made the wrong career move. 2. Capitalism! 3. you're lucky - imagine if you were a warehouse worker. He's a pilot, not an accountant or lawyer. He knows that there is pay…

He is blaming a foreign company which is hiring his own comapny for failures his company is not adressing. Sorry stupid article. I´s not DHL´s fault that Southern Airline is not able to compete and to organize. Btw in Germany there are Unions for that. https://www.vcockpit.de/en.html

So because he's laying the blame at the wrong door then he, and so many others in his predicament, don't deserve empathy?

The man is a pilot not a political anorak/economist/pundit. It would be more helpful to point out where the blame lies: lobbying, party/campaign financing, unfair trade agreements etc.

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

#75

Post by dev_head_up »

dx034 wrote: post #60

> We work long hours, fly in dangerous conditions and go through years of training, but we do it because we understand that our work is vital to keeping our economy humming. No. Pilots become pilots because they love flying and because it pays well (mostly the former). Haven't heard of any pilot who chose the job because it's important for the economy.

I don't think I'd believe anyone who said they do job "for the good of the economy." It's a laughable statement really.

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

#76

Post by vertex-four »

microcolonel wrote: post #42
nathan_f77 wrote: post #41

> At another DHL carrier, pilots went on strike for two days after a year of regularly being forced to cover overtime shifts due to short-staffing. Sounds like they need to do more of that. Is there a surplus of pilots waiting in line for jobs? This isn't the first time I've heard that pilots get paid very little and have to work incredibly long hours. Are there no unions?

I'd like them to define "forced", I don't think there really is any mechanism for an employer to compel anyone to do things. People learn to fly because they like flying, it is fun. Because people like to fly, the going rate for piloting is low. If people didn't like flying so much, the rates would be higher.

There's certainly a mechanism by which an industry can compel its workers not to leave the industry - the cost of retraining. Most countries front-load training for jobs into 2-5 years near the beginning of people's adult lives putting them into debt - but they're often not able to retrain later on, due to debts (remaining loans from the first time, a mortgage, a car, etc) and responsibilities (often having a family). I don't know anyone with a family who could realistically spend a couple of years working part-time so they could free up the time to go to college again.

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

#77

Post by jen729w »

Anyone here - not me, but only because I live in Australia - who doesn't recognise they they are the problem, are the problem.

We all want things, and we all want them the cheapest. Amazon is the cheapest. And how? This is how.

We either get used to a world where things cost less and people all across the delivery chain get treated really shitty, or we all accept that we have to pay a dollar more for that 12-pack of toilet paper.

Discussions of flying hours and labour rules here are disingenuous. We choose. Cheap, and people get fucked over? Or pay more, and (hopefully) they don't.

It's up to us. This is not a technology issue.

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

#78

Post by Dwolb »

A few thoughts here.

1) DHL started in the US in 1969 and became German owned a little after 2002 (it has a pretty cool origin story where the founder felt there was a better way to deliver overnight goods to Hawaii than to literally sit a person on a plane and stuff legal documents in his luggage. He used his student loans to... "bootstrap"). IMO the article loses some credibility by using "foreign competition" verbiage a lot to emotionally sway the reader.

2) Is DHL skirting regulator rules and putting pilots in unsafe conditions? Regulations need to first and foremost be in place to prevent deadly disasters.

3) It sounds like pilots are losing their market power in the labor market (supply is increasing faster than demand) leading to lower wages and benefits and worse scheduling policies. This is a place where unions typically would play as a way for laborers to gain back their market power. Not sure the union conditions in the airline industry but I'm guessing there are issues with global labor competition that's making this difficult. We as a society need to understand how globalization (and now automation!) is/will effect every job on the planet.

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

#79

Post by 300bps »

noir-york wrote: post #65

The lack of empathy in the comments is disconcerting. The post is a bit light on details (though the example given of flying 23 hours back-to-back continental flights is terrible if regular) the post deserves better than: 1. Pilots fly for fun. You made the wrong career move. 2. Capitalism! 3. you're lucky - imagine if you were a warehouse worker. He's a pilot, not an accountant or lawyer. He knows that there is pay…

I found the wording of that one example strange:

For example, my colleagues and I have been asked to sit on 14-hour flights from the UW to the Middle East, only to then fly the same aircraft to Asia on another nine-hour journey.

It isn't clear he was actually piloting the aircraft for these flights, especially the first one where he says he was "asked to sit on". Unless "asked to sit on" is an industry euphemism for piloting, it seems like a carefully worded statement meant to deceive.

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

#80

Post by SyneRyder »

Dwolb wrote: post #78

A few thoughts here. 1) DHL started in the US in 1969 and became German owned a little after 2002 (it has a pretty cool origin story where the founder felt there was a better way to deliver overnight goods to Hawaii than to literally sit a person on a plane and stuff legal documents in his luggage. He used his student loans to... "bootstrap"). IMO the article loses some credibility by using "foreign competition" verb…

> DHL started in the US in 1969 and became German owned a little after 2002

Wow, thanks for pointing this out. I've been under the mistaken impression that DHL was always German (and that German precision is why they were better than the competition), and I'd assumed DHL stood for Deutsche Something Something.

[From the DHL company history: "On 25 September 1969, Adrian Dalsey, Larry Hillblom and Robert Lynn (the D, H and L in our company name) incorporate DHL."]

http://wap.dhl.com/info/history.html

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