Really ?
Where did you see that little gem written down, or did you just make it up
The negotiated pay rise takes into account a lot of factors including the cost of living and how well the company is doing.
It also consists of a lot of horse trading concerning T & C's.
To think that the negotiated pay increase is purely a "cost-of-living" increase really is being simplistic and naive.
Anyway it doesn't matter what it consists of or what it is called.
To make things easy I will settle on the same criteria that Baron and the other spivs used in 2009/10 to award their own pay rises.
Any payment increase that is calculated as a multiplyer of RPI is in essence a cost-of-living related activity. Our pensionable pay increases are capped at a cost-of-living multiplyer limit. There is no mechanism to formally include any other factors, such as the level of profit the company made in the calculation... It becomes involved simply as a negotiation tool. Ts & Cs have also only become part of that negotiation due to the company not being willing to meet the cost-of-living rises without attaching strings.
The whole reason that we are arguing 2% or more than 2% with strings is unacceptable is because 2% doesn't match the increase we've all felt in the cost of things. The fact the company has made large profits, paid large dividends and given out golden wheelbarrows are all good additional arguments - but RPI is the fundemental one.
Is that enough for you, or would you like to dig out your contract of employment too?