Alpha41, let me just state the facts of it, being the the lightweight that I am (your words). Most of the pilots I know flying for
VB are not sitting on any piles of cash. They simply had had enough of working overseas and wanted to work back in OZ. Being blacklisted long ago by the domestics and too old for QF, taking the job with
VB for the money on offer was the only choice. 'Hold out for more' you say. If you ever leave the sheltered workshop you call home and venture out into the big wide world as these guys had done then.......ah what's the point? You'll never get it.
I ask what you paid for training because in some parts of the world, especially Asia, there are FOs paying back huge sums of money for their training. I personally know a number of people who have bought endorsements and moved on to bigger and better things, but, hey!, you hang in there and stick up for your rights.
Your bleating is a relic of the old union days in OZ where the workers tell all and sundry where and when they will work and for how much, and this Ansett debacle is just an example of the old giving way to the new.