Hi palauman,
first of, I agree, that it is a good way to start telling as many people as possible about conditions on a as wide as possible variety of boards. I like this one, because I am heavily involved with it and it the only one (I know of) that really focuses on the diving professional. But there must be a solution going beyond this boards and organize professionals better!
I agree with you to a certain point regarding unions. Def. regards your argument, that a international union would be hard/impossible to archive in the traditional sense of a union. I agree even with the statement of your quoted PADI email. My idea (as far as I can call it that) starts actually from a different angle. First of all, let's drop the name union, it sets to many blocks in peoples mind. Lets call it a Community of Interests, or even better an Association of Diving professionals (not in the sense of a certification agency). Means an Association of Instr. & DM's with the goal to improve working conditions in our industry. I still agree with you, that it is not possible to create a big international organisation out of nothing. The first step would have to be that people organize themself within their cert. agencies and where applicable even within their regional offices/franchises of this cert. agencies. The goal can't be to apply same rules for everybody anywhere, since (as you said - or was it PADI?
local labour laws are to different.
If we want any success in the process, we need to start a level below international laws - what would be our respective cert. agencies!
As you surely noticed before, all cert agencies (on a professional kind of level) have something Equal to a quality assurance department. Even if not personally affected, you heard about it. This department simply controls and regulates the enforcement of standards and ethics for the diving professional/and dive center (it seems more often to hit the individual, but that might be my personal misconception).
On the other hand any of the agencies I have to do with (and as I found out in conversations, many I don't) are very fast to wash themself clean of any responsebility, when it comes to contracts (work) between DC's anfd individual professionals! THAT is suddenly your personal responsebility! Well, here it starts that I have a different view of the whole situation.
I believe, if we can pull together, we have a voice to "force" agencies into the situation to rewrite the membership contracts individuals and DC's sign every year with their respective cert. agency. If you ever read the contract you renew every year, it contains a lot of responsebilities you underwrite, similar for the DC.
This particular yearly membership agreement could regulate also very easy, what a DC has to provide you with, when they hire you and ofcourse also additional points, you are to fulfill when signing a contract. The result of breaches would be, same as with everything else, counseling or maybe non teaching status/suspended membership, or last resort - expellation of the party breaking it. Keep in mind, it is not only you (the individual) that profits from the relationship with a cert. agency. The DC also gets a lot of benefits out of it. Now, if the DC has to provide you with a contract, which specifies your working relationship they couldnt just lay you off, on the other hand, as long as you have your pre arrangements documented (email, even taped phone conversations) you could be the reason, that they get into major trouble! Downer for them - advantage for you in terms of getting paid as agreed and not layed of from one day to the next.
See also something (where I put the link up here to) like an agreement what just get into force in whitsunday between operators, unions and individuals. Ofcourse it might be also the reason you get laid off, it's a double edged sword.
That would be just a beginning, now imagine all this "local" Associations form a board, where they all meet and organize themself with each other - the result could be very easily something something like the RSTC is for cert. agencies! The RSTC is pretty powerful and not a union, so could be an Association of Diving Professionals (let's call it AoDP for now
). And suddenly you have a union like organisation, what actually would have an influence and might be able to better conditions for people in our industry.
What you think - it's a possibility isn't it??? And suddenly you look at something the DC's don't want and the cert. agencies try to tell you - IT'S IMPOSSIBLE!
Let me know, if you think it is impossible, or if you think I might have a point here!!!