As far as holding a hot runner back yes that can happen and has happened. At Turkey Point going to license class is strictly determined by seniority. So you have to wait. To go to licensed class you need 3 years of power plant experience which about half our guys get from the navy. We are currently so short staffed that as soon as you get on shift and get fully qualified you are eligble to go to class. The company has trouble getting guys to agree to go to class because they do not want to take the pay cut. FPL now lets NLOs in class work overtime and they pay them bottom of the RCO payscale while in class and the go to mid scale when they get thier license.
As far as pay goes. We work so much overtime that the highest paid NLOs make as much if not more then the RCOs that turn down overtime. I do not know how true it is but some of the Unit Supervisors tell us because of our overtime, we make more then many of the newer Unit Supervisors. They are very jealous of our OT.
One of our RCOs told me that being stuck in the box (control room) sucks but the money is good. He feels that being an NLO is the greatest job in the plant. We do have lots of freedom, you can pretty much do what you want. You have no resposibility but 100% accountability. You find something wrong you tell the control room and they take care of it. it is not like the navy where operators do maintenance. We just operate. The Maintenance Dept does maintenance. Or at least that is what they claim they do...