Dogsnutz,
poor, poor American Transair employees. You didn't get a Christmas party.
Well, hands up anyone at BA who has been to a BA funded Christmas party - nope, I thought not. The only people who get those are, yes you guessed, Waterside employees.
In the grand scheme of things we are fed up of decades of shafting (although I myself have only experienced a few years of it). Every airline employee has been hard hit after Sept 11th - BA employees have had years of it before that fateful day. We don't think the world owes us a living because we are pilots. We think our employer owes us a living because we work damn hard for it.
We at BA have taken head reductions, fleet cutbacks, pay freezes and cuts in 'non-essential' items and lots, lots more, however many of our workforce are still awaiting the rewards for 'sharing the pain' after the Gulf War, yet between now and then BA has experienced some of its highest ever profits. It patted the directors on the back, gave them wodges of cash and then when the 'uniforms' (and believe me, that is not a term of endearment in BA) asked for a bit they said 'Sorry, none left'.
BA could have nipped this problem in the bud by paying a reasonable living wage to start with. Then when the poo hit the fan last year BA would have had pilots who accepted their lot.
In the meantime Dogsnutz, if you can think of a reason for accepting a relative pay cut every year, even in those years when a company makes record profits, please let us all in on the secret.