Mr Wright, if you consider ONE PERCENT as a pay increase for an aircraft with almost 50% more capacity, then I guess we did get a payrise. Wow, I had no idea what to do with my $360 after tax. However, it did partly cover the disproportionate cost of living increase.
All the payrises we've had in the last 8 years have beel LESS than CPI. So real wages have reduced as well as the conditions lost just to get less than CPI.
I suggest you go to
OSIRIS and see who get paid more than us. Southern and Skywest are just two others that I can think of that do better. And good on them. Remember that ANY conditions attached to ANY job are usually a result of hard work put in by employees/unions.
The reason wages are going down in this industry is that people are prepared to accept lousy conditions because they are desperate and will do just about anything to get that airline job. That's fine if you want it.
That's why you get such well thought out responses from people like "Go on, leave. I'll do it for less". Wish I had a $ for every time I saw that somewhere on this and other BBS's. Pilots are their own worst enemy. And Companies know that.
All we are trying to do is MAINTAIN our conditions. The cost of living has gone up more than 7% since I last had my salary increased.
D.McD: No rebuke that I'm aware of. The Company is quite profitable. Just remember this is not a strike. It is protected action permitted under Industrial Relations legislation.
To quote one of my colleagues "We are not asking for a big payrise, we're just asking not to be screwed". That is all we ask.