Because we don't need nor want protection.Alas poor beancounters have no such protection.
I raised the point only in objection to merit being considered a bad thing, rather than an ideal. In a perfect world, cabin crew would be compensated based on merit, bad as you rightly point out, there is no practical manner in which to measure an employee's value to the company when you have a very large workforce like NWA. Thus, pay scales are the only practical solution, since they represent the most fair solution, and length of service should have a fairly strong correlation to performance (to a certain point).I will agree that you raise a valid point, however in something as subjective as evaluating flight deck and cabin crews how do you do this? Let's face it, the airlines often are rushing when safety or procedural issues prevent an early or on-time push. Someone who wasn't on the aircraft and is in some nice cubicle somewhere is making evaluations that they have no clue about.
Just how do you propose to evaluate those personnel?