Its a fact that they can't man the freigthers with freighter pilots alone. Here's an idea - lets not volunteer to fly the freighter. Then they will have to pay more to attract freighter pilots and, voila, suddenly freighter and pax scales are the same!
Of course only applies to captains as they can continue to intimidate FOs into flying the freighters! Oh no, thats right, I am missing out on "interesting flying" - thanks Richard for pointing that out. Split duties are interesting too. So too is 2 man crew flying between HKG and the middle east. Damn I miss that interesting flying. Please can I have that back!? Three man to Europe and back would be REALLY interesting - can I have some of that too!?