Pilots on Food Stamps

[Joanne98]

We're on the descent from 20,000 feet in the air when the flight attendant leans over the elderly woman next to me and taps me on the shoulder.

"I'm listening to Lady Gaga," I say as I remove just one of the ear buds. I know not this Lady Gaga, but her performance last week on SNL was fascinating.

"The pilots would like to see you in the cockpit when we land," she says with a southern drawl.

"Did I do something wrong?"

Michael Moore's diary :: :: "No. They have something to show you." (The last time an employee of an airline wanted to show me something it was her written reprimand for eating an in-flight meal without paying for it. "Yes," she said, "we have to pay for our own meals on board now.")

The plane landed and I stepped into the cockpit. "Read this," the first officer said. He handed me a letter from the airline to him. It was headlined "LETTER OF CONCERN." It seems this poor fellow had taken three sick days in the past year. The letter was a warning not to take another one -- or else.

"Great," I said. "Just what I want -- you coming to work sick, flying me up in the air and asking to borrow the barf bag from my seatback pocket."

He then showed me his pay stub. He took home $405 this week. My life was completely and totally in his hands for the past hour and he's paid less than the kid who delivers my pizza.

I told the guys that I have a whole section in my new movie about how pilots are treated (using pilots as only one example of how people's wages have been slashed and the middle class decimated). In the movie I interview a pilot for a major airline who made $17,000 last year. For four months he was eligible -- and received -- food stamps. Another pilot in the film has a second job as a dog walker.

"I have a second job!," the two pilots said in unison. One is a substitute teacher. The other works in a coffee shop. You know, maybe it's just me, but the two occupations whose workers shouldn't be humpin' a second job are brain surgeons and airline pilots. Call me crazy.

I told them about how Capt. "Sully" Sullenberger (the pilot who safely landed the jet in the Hudson River) had testified in Congress that no pilot he knows wants any of their children to become a pilot. Pilots, he said, are completely demoralized. He spoke of how his pay has been cut 40% and his own pension eliminated. Most of the TV news didn't cover his remarks and the congressmen quickly forgot them. They just wanted him to play the role of "HERO," but he was on a more important mission. He's in my movie.

"I hadn't heard anywhere that this stuff about the airlines is in this new movie," the pilot said.

"No, you wouldn't," I replied. "The press likes to talk about me, not the movie."

Continued>>>
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/13/793004/-Pilots-on-Food-Stamps

[Rabrrrrrr]

1. Sully was on the Today show yesterday, and said that airlines are hiring pilots for

and pilots with only 200 hours of experience.

That's goddamned scary.

And it's as fucking sad as the fact that probably half our low level enlisted men in the military are also on food stamps.

[Parche]

2. pay

That is the pay of most commuter airlines

The major airlines pay their pilots alot more....

:hi:

[thunder rising]

4. And that's the carrot that is dangled that 99% will never reach

[thunder rising]

3. Anybody that's a pilot know's this is old news. Pilots love their job ... to their own peril

The industry discovered that due to the hierarchy of certifications vs cost for hrs pilots cannot be underpaid.

I will say this in any pilot's defense ... his or her a$$ is on that plane with you (and they really do love to fly.)

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. Michael Moore mentioned low paid pilots in a previous movie.

It was either in Sicko or Bowling for Columbine. I think it was in Bowling for Columbine.

[elocs]

6. I read about it here Sunday and it got 17 Recs:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6755188