When you joined you knew what your mouthly salary, the amount of housing allowance, your retirement age, your p-fund contribution and that you should NEVER EVER want any increase or improvement in any areas of your condition - yet you still joined CX = so you do not have a leg to stand on next time you ask the AOA to negotiate with the company for a better deal.
I hate to be the one to break it to you ChildLabour, but you have inadvertently shot your arguement down in your own post, because whilst we all have monthly salary, retirement age, p-fund contributions in our contracts, only Expats( rightly or wrongly) have housing allowance written into theirs, and unfair as that may seem to you now, it is a fact, and one that was ( or should have been) obvious to you when you signed yours....
Now, having said that....none of us like to see the specifics of the above list of contractual items change ( unless they are an improvement of course) and all of us will agree that we want to defend the contacts that we signed with vigor, but from a legal stand point, it is going to be hard to have a defense that is basically " I know what I signed up for, but now I want it changed" Can you not see that???
How is it any different to me ( as a B scaler) going into the AOA tomorrow and saying...."you know what guys...I know I joined on B scale, but I now feel (14 years later) discriminated against because there are plenty of people doing the same job on A scale salary and benefits. So I would now like the union to fully support my discrimination suit against the company for this unfair treatment"
What do you suppose the response would be???
Really....How is it any different???
Mullah thinks that it would be opening up a Pandoras Box to suggest that the AOA use the A Scale Local Captains $24000/ mo housing assistance as a "fairness meter", and he assures us that it would be unilaterally rejected by the Company....Why would that be an unreasonable yard stick as a means of comparison, but the Expat Housing Allowance isn't???
I know that this "discrimination" accusation made by the AOA has not been launched in a deliberate attempt to attack the Expat Housing Assistance, nor do I feel that most of the CEP's would want that message being sent out as their agenda....however, when you read headlines in the newspaper that read "LOCAL PILOTS FLYING OFF THE HANDLE AT EXPAT PERKS" that is exactly the message that is being sent out!
What I am saying, is that in any negotiation, success, or the lack of it, can be decided before the two parties even enter the room. Its called perception and salesmanship...a lot depends on how you "sell" something to the other side, and how you are being perceived to be conducting yourself before, during, and after the negotiation can have a dramatic impact on the results.
The AOA is selling this thing COMPLETELY the wrong way!!! They need to be trying to get the best deal for the CEP's / LEP's , and in doing so, not risk undermining the conditions of the rest of the pilot body. In this poorly thought out "preemptive strike", well ahead of talks that were to be held to discuss the conditions of ALL aircrew, they are already building a wall between any negotiating teams, before they even take their seats.
As much as it may take the "wind out of your sails", in all my years of flying here, I have NEVER heard anyone on a Flight Deck, or in a Bar, suggest that they would like to see another "demographic" suffer on lower conditions....and that is NOT what is happening now. No one is suggesting that you shouldn't be striving for something better, far from it...what we are saying is that there are better ways of achieving your aims than by throwing your toys out of the cot and saying " I want what he or she has , or else" I hate to break it to you, but that sh*t doensn't work around here...it always has the opposite effect.
You need to be instructing the AOA that you would like to keep things positive, civil and respectful leading into the Housing Negotiations, while reminding the company of the DPA's successful negotiation with DA for housing assistance for ALL Crew, .....Respectfully highlighting the CEP's support for SLS and help during SARS etc, while emphasizing what you feel are the inequities of conditions between various groups within the CX ranks... Remind the Company that it is not fair to essentially be "bonded" for life re: training costs, while showing your professionalism as a mature , competent faction within the Aircrew Body. To scupper the talks before they even start (and that is the potential end result of what the newspaper headlines are currently stating) is not exactly first rate negotiating tactics. And before you say it...we all know that the newspapers take liberties...but the union does have a certain amount of control over what the headlines say.
I don't begrudge the A scaler for signing up for his "fancy package", nor do I think anyone should begrudge me my Housing Assistance, and I know most don't, but your "two Yachts in the Gold Coast" rhetoric towards the people who simply accepted the terms of a contract that was based on the market value for EXPERIENCED pilots from overseas, doesn't exactly sell me on your "We are not attacking the Expats" pitch. I say experienced, because whether you like it or not, the fact that we had experience was the difference in the Contract that was on offer.
We ALL want better conditions of service, for ALL. Nobody is trying to prevent another from getting a better deal, but the current "push" from the AOA not only jeopardizes your chances of getting what you are after, it has the potential to undermine ALL that has been fought for in the past