As posted in the Mr. SMCP thread:
I also think it's time for the AOA to make it's own unilateral demand before continuing any negotiations:
"We, company management, leaders, communication personnel and all relevant individuals who make statements about such matters, agree that seniority-based pilot pay scale annual increments are not equivalent to pay rises and will never again be referred to as pay rises in any further communication. We agree that a pay increase for pilots occurs when the value of each pay increment is increased, not when a pilot moves up a step in the annual pay increments. We agree that, unlike all other employee groups in the company, major airline pilots throughout the world are part of a seniority-based career, lifestyle, promotion and pay system that is designed to retain very expensive and valuable training and experienced gained by pilots during their careers at the company and prevents the company from becoming a revolving door "contractor pilot" airline. This is why, despite 10-20 years of previous experience before being hired at our company, we continue to invest in their training and qualifications for the long term and want to retain pilots until retirement to benefit from those investments and the value they bring to the company, and because it is so difficult, costly and time-consuming to replace pilots who leave and far more efficient to retain pilots with excellent pay and benefit that remain excellent.
We agree that pilots are paid much less early in their careers at the company and that we motivate and encourage them to stay with the company, rather than take their qualifications and experience to the highest bidder elsewhere, though the use of this seniority-based system that makes pilots want to invest decades of their lives at the company in order to attain the highest pay levels. This is very beneficial to the company, so we provide a table of annual pay increments and agree that increasing the value of that table from time to time, in a manner similar to pay rises given to other employee groups, is necessary in order to compensate for inflation, cost of living and to remain competitive in the market. In fact, we agree that doing so is more necessary for pilots than most employee groups, because of the value of the investment the company makes in each pilot as well as the risk the pilot takes in sticking with the company for decades while the option of changing airlines quickly becomes less and less valuable. We see this as a mutually beneficial situation that requires the proper level of company contribution.
Because we recognize that pilots are at the very front operational lines when it comes to the complex flying of our large fleet of large aircraft, and because pilots are the very final experts, professionals and authorities in the safe operation of our aircraft, we place tremendous value in pilots for upholding our #1 stated corporate priority, which is safety.
For the removal of any doubt, once again, we, the company, agree that an annual pay increment on the pilot pay scale is not a pay rise, but rather simply a step up the seniority-based pay system that is promised to pilots to reward their longevity and to increasingly encourage long careers at the company as the pilot becomes increasing more valuable as more and more investment by the company has been made in their ongoing training and experience, and as more and more risk has been taken by the pilots who choose to continue to offer their services to the company.
Furthermore, we will immediately issue a press release and a company-wide statement to clarify the misconception that we are responsible for creating in order to lower pilots' expectations of a pay rise."