Frustration is a terrible feeling - normally causing an emotional reaction. This is not always helpful - as my son and his colleagues discovered at a football tournament this last weekend! The outburst in response to sustained provocation from an opposing player certainly satisfied his team-mates' emotional needs - but the 'red card' which followed caused everyone else more work and made achieving the target (winning) much more difficult.
ECA is responsible (among other things) for making the case for a safer, just aviation industry; underpinned by thoughtful effective regulation at a European political level. Representing the profession in this way can be frustrating at times. It is the first lesson you learn, though, to put away the emotional reaction and think through the strategy to ensure that we represent you as effectively as possible.
At the recent IFALPA Conference in Mexico there was a significant amount of frustration with a number of current developments in our industry.
- Frustration that the regulatory authorities seem to be galloping towards wider and deeper liberalisation of the industry, without listening to serious concerns over the effect this will have on both safety oversight and increased social dumping;
- Frustration at the current EU legal framework, which enables trans-national companies but in practice denies trans-national collective bargaining - thus breaching (in ECA's opinion) the EU Member States' obligations under the ILO Conventions to which they are all signatories;
- Frustration at the approach of British Airways' management to setting up a subsidiary airline to exploit the new air services agreement between the EU and the USA, which excludes their current loyal pilot group.
ECA has developed a safety strategy which is used to help drive a strengthening of EASA into a strong and independent European safety regulator. We work directly with the European Institutions, and alongside other European bodies such as the European Transport Workers' Federation (ETF) which represents many of the other non-flight deck workers in our industry, and the Association of European Airlines (AEA) which represents many of our airline employers. We seek a strong yet coherent regulatory framework, which raises all aviation standards to the level of the best.
The IFALPA Strategic Review Group (which includes ECA Vice President, Henk de Vries as well as a number of other Europeans) has been addressing the effect of Globalisation on our industry. They led a very thought provoking seminar at the Conference in Mexico. The SRG has taken on the challenge and produced very clear action plans - it is now the turn of the Member Associations, as well as Associations such as ECA, to put this plan into action. They fall under three headings: training and education, raising our profile and organising the world's pilots. Each comes with a breakdown of their analysis, clear project plans and material for Associations to use in their implementation.
ECA has been working hard to persuade our European regulators that very strong industrial concerns may provoke unrest in our industry if not addressed. If the EU does not use an intelligent approach at European level to solve these separate safety and industrial issues - we will pay a heavy price by not reducing the accident rate and by provoking the sort of industrial unrest not seen for over a generation. Current frustrations must lead to thoughtful strategies, and not emotional reactions!
