The company had an obligation to discuss Pay with the AOA following the Housing, 49ers, RP talks... so they obliged. They were never going to be generous as we are but 2,000 of a work force of 20,000. (expand your 15-20% over the entire company and the profit's gone...)
This is true, however you are also assuming that other workgroups have a claim to this size of increase also. If you stop for a minute and talk to other categories you will find some of them have had payrises in the last 6-7 years.
At the end of the day the company really wasn't offering anything. It was a classic we'll take, you do all the giving, but don't expect it to be reciprocated.