stillalbatross,
as you seem set on leaving I would advise you to contact the DPA and ask to join them. I would also suggest you contact the Teamsters - they seem to do very well with their negotiations. Also the scriptwriters guild have won their battle against hollywood. Not sure how the baseball players did against the team/club owners a couple of years back but I think they did OK. Also the Victorian school teachers just achieved a 20%+ payrise for over the next 3 years so give them a call.
I am sure somewhere out there there is a union ready to take your subs and will do everything in their power, including industrial action, to get you the fair and equitable treatment that you deserve and that the AOA couldn't get you. Lets just hope that some of our coal mine owners have their kids in Victorian public schools so that the teachers strike action, on your behalf, would actually result in you getting a payrise. Or maybe you are pretty sure the DPA will commence CC or even strike action to help you out!
Now back in the real world....the AOA is us - not 20 individuals that represent us...if WE want payrises then WE will need to be prepared to take action. Having been involved in two past 'talk fests', what management like to hypocritically call 'negotiations', I can tell you logic, fairness and peer airline comparison have absolutely NOTHING to do with getting a payrise. Put yourselves in their shoes...would you care how under or over paid your workers are if all they do is complain but continue to turn up to work? Seven years ago the average CX pilot achieved about 590 block hours(not factored, not credit). The average over last two years was close to 700 and given how many pilots I meet who are hitting the 900hr limit I suspect this years average will be above 700. So why should management feel compelled to give us a payrise?
Its really simple - we only get a payrise if not getting a payrise costs them more. It can only cost them more if people keep leaving and/or we make it cost more. In last years negotiations we asked for about 30+% over 3 years - obviously that was rejected and replaced with an imposed 3%(for some). Our proposal would have cost CX an equivalent amount to a small single digit increase to the fuel budget. Since then fuel prices have doubled...our cost is even less significant compared to the total cost of the operation. I suggest that if we all added about 10-20 to our new CI it would cost them more than our total pay proposal last year. Not that I am suggesting we do something as immoral and unprofessional as needlessly burning fuel. I think being immoral and unprofessional is best left to the experts - our coal mine owners.