In my mind you can't have a negotiator who's main job is a pilot! His secondary job is a negotiator? Please
Do you see actors, lawyers, sportsman and other high paid professionals negotiating their contracts? NO!!!!! They have specialist people doing it for them.
This is my biggest problem with aviation unions, they all think that if they do a 3 day industrial relations course then that makes them negotiators.
Get professional people in to front the talks with the company. These people won't get sidetracked by petty issues, they deal with the all the issues. After all they do this day in and day out in many different fields. We work as pilots first, everything else second. We can't give 100% to negotiations, they can.
Secondly get a good
PR firm to represent us!!! They have ways and means of delivering the story to the public, especially the local chinese public who tend to think that we are all paid $5 millions dollars (According to Tony T.) We need to educate the public on how things really are at Cathay.
In this time period where anything to do with aviation is in decline, now is the time to get a better package and work conditions, not a worse one. From pilots, engineers, anyone really.