What a dog's breakfast!
there are so many strands to this issue that it is difficult to know where to start.
clearly BA has got industrial relations very wrong over a long period. it is unfortunate that there seems to have been no company wide job comparison, with staff involvement, to minimise the sort of bickering over job importance we have seen here recently. presumably the 'you are BA' comment, intended to give cc a sense of worth, has backfired badly by turning in to a rather precious sense of over importance in some heads. this in turn has emphasised the grievance felt by others in the company as they see the cc union branches refusing to chip-in to turn the company round.
the job has many points of comparison with work in the hospitality industry. not all i know, but over a wide range of skills that are used on a day to day basis ( as opposed to those high-end skills needed exceptionally in an emergency). many of those jobs in the hospitality industry are paid at little above the minimum wage. as other posters have suggested many cc resent any attempt at 'evaluating' their job skills on a realistic basis: hence references to them 'living in la-la land' elsewhere in this forum.
there is nothing unusual in having people working on short service contracts alongside those who intend to stay in the industry and pursue a long-service career: the RAF pioneered this approach virtually from inception. it is unreasonable to assume that all who become cc can have a career purely in cc stream through to normal retirement. perhaps the company should look again at an outlet for cc into other branches of the company mid career? that can only happen realistically if there is not a financial penalty in such a move - again, an incentive not to over-remunerate cc at the top end.
nor should we overlook the fact that it is the skills needed for the job that the employer will value and pay for, not your personal skill levels. your personal skill level is only relevant so far as it chimes with the needs of the job. see the Goldthorpe studies at Vauxhall's where PhDs were working on the production line at one stage.
this really is a mess and i cannot see any sign that the cc union branches have any strategy, least of all an exit strategy.