Charly,
Good luck to you all, I hope you get what you want.
Management always play the same old tricks. One minute they put you on a pedestal, extoling your virtues and drawing passengers to fly with the airline, citing the excellent safety record of the pilots, their commitment to customer service etc. So they make big money from our skills. As soon as we dare to wish for a comparable salary to any other professional they shove the bat up our ar*$. It's high tiem these freaks got a taste of the fruits of cheesing us all off for so long....I've said it elsewhere, but I'd love to see them run an airline without any pilots; especially one the size of Lufty.
Have you ever noticed how airlines flount their profits etc in the interest of shareholder value, yet when you want a slice of the profit they've never got any money? This is one of the issues I want to see addressed aggresively when our people go for a pay rise. Tell our management to stick it where the sun doesn't shine, when they say they don't have any money to give us.
Their next trick will be to discredit you to the public. They'll give some sob story about how the nasty, greedy pilots already get paid too much and now they want to plunge the company into doom by increasing your salaries. It's this sort of childish nonsense that earns most of our managers the sort of reputations they so richly deserve. Some how you've just got to ignore the stupidity of the small-minded and concentrate on the issue at hand. Keep it all in perspective and relevant. Who really gives a damn if someone else THINKS you get paid too much. Will your guilt over their feelings get the bills paid....I don't think so.
So, keep going and try to take some comfort that there are other, like-minded people around who support you all the way.
Cheers,
Pontius
PS:You'll be able to find me at a picket fence near LHR at the end of the year if our lot don't get their act together.