Gnads I totally agree with you. - relax 737 you're defeatist posts also don't recognise history.
Sir, you're a bit too young to remember the early 1950's when airlines took F/O's with less than 500 hours because there just weren't pilots around. You won't remember the hard but worthy battles that newly formed unions waged that radically improved pilots working lives - no more multiple pilots being forced to share boarding house rooms on overnights and abysmal flight-time limitation issues.
You also won't recall the early sixties when even TAA and Ansett had to set up cadet schemes and pay for training in order to fill pilot seats. You clearly have forgotten even recent history where one airline initially required interviewees to pay for sim checks etc until they too were desperate for pilots. Before the GFC my airline had to hire anybody with a heartbeat if they had a licence.
And 737, to convert your defeatest interpretation of Packers' quote - he who has the gold wins - we have the gold!
There are not enough qualified and experienced pilots globally to fill the front seats of airliners that are on order. And no, no matter how dumb a manager may be (or how thick you suggest us as pilots skulls are) he is not going to allow a $100million, $200m or $300m aircraft to sit idle when by paying a pilot an extra $50k/yr that asset would be fully utilised. You're bluntness is again incorrect. Shareholders do not allow such fiscal irresponsibility.
Now Australia has always had a surplus of pilots and many of us have been overseas. Historically there were limitations by having only 3 main airlines - all growing slowly. Now there are 4+ operators all aggressively looking at expansion. This is happening at a time when Commercial pilot licence issuing is at an all time low and the military supply has basically evaporated. Aussie pilots are also routinely looking abroad for employment when this was never the norm 10+ years ago.
Pure simple basic economics dictates that as a result we have the gold. This is Economics 101 and outweighs any perceived, drama-queen 'new order' in industrial relations. Nothing has changed since Keynes' day; Lots of demand + limited supply = higher salaries.
If we stick together and get what we want then our fortunes are set. For example, on recruitment websites, if there is an expected salary bracket, put in the Qantas 747 or A330 Captain salary as a yardstick (A$350) or whatever your overseas equivalent is (Cathay $500k). Don't just put in a low salary so you think you will be more attractive, particularly if you are not fussed about getting the job in the first place. Perhaps the more people who put in these globally realistic and higher salaries the better for everybody as recruiters are made aware of global reality.
But by far the worst, historically inaccurate and most defeatist approach to take would be the relax 737 position. Sir before you retire in apparent mysery perhaps you might want to take time to inspire those younger than you rather than trying to force them to accept what is definitely not an industrial inevitability.