It appears to me that the going rate for a wide body captain is $10,000 a month plus. I understand that 330/340 trainers can expect 13-15k$. So I guess that if EK are not offering DECs around that and as $10k is about 36.5k dirham then they won't get too many takers unless they are offering your rumoured 38k. It sounds about right to me.
With any luck and with the promised pilot shortage we should see more than that becoming the norm. I feel sorry for the guys stuck as FOs at EK and hope that things improve for you. The only way it will change for you is when the leavers start hurting the schedule.