10sne1,
You say,"if we are to integrate the crews"; you appear to be behind the times. The AOA overwhelmingly voted to integrated the crews a year ago and it is happening, no "if" about it.
I am employed by Veta, and accepted my number at the bottom of the list on 1st Jan 2000. Most of the pilots on the Freighter are employed by Veta; some are senior to the majority of AOA members I would expect. I am sure that they would join with me and be astounded that you would vote against any action that may lead to a pay rise for them, solely because you harbour some ill-informed prejudices against Freighter pilots; Thanks mate, bodes well for CX pilot unity!
However, I suspect that your somewhat jaundiced view may not be shared by your colleagues. Consider this:
I estimate about 30% of all basings occur on the Freighter. So there's a good chance that if you or your colleagues want to go on base someday, you will be offered a Freighter basing. Will you want freighter pay or B Scale when you go on base? If you think you'll be happy with Freighter pay then keep your head in the sand.
As I posted previously, the freighter pay is receiving upward pressure from the market place. My personal view, fanciful perhaps, is that should the Company be offered the chance to cross roster Veta pilots from the Freighter to the pax aircraft, they may be prepared to abolish the Freighter pay scales now. I would have thought anything that gets rid of a pay scale lower than yours, that you may one day fall to, is worth some form of sacrifice. That sacrifice would be, on occasion, having to operate with one of the 40 or so CNs who signed across from ASL. In reality it would only apply to the 744 and would be nothing new as it has been happening all year on the 400F and on the 400 pax when some of the former ASL CNs trained on the 400.
Finally, the last sentence of your post doesn't apply to me as I am Veta and AOA membership is available to me. However, I would have thought a unified union membership of all those who operate CX aircraft is preferable to a factionalised one.
Liam G.