cxorcist,
I am not naive, I am realistic. I agree that anything which differentiates one pilot's contract from that of another is not good for unity. However, it has been shown, both by OUR actions and those of the company since the early 1990s that we cannot stick together. Bases were a bright move by the company because the pilots only saw what it did for the pilots; the company saw it as a way to divide and conquer.
The company is not a stupid as some of us may think. They cleverly disguise something so we think we've "won" by getting it. In reality, their "loss" is not a loss at all.
If you think that there is some way to salvage and combine our fragmented pilot group I say that you are the one who is naive. Unfortunately (I wish it were not this way) it is every pilot for himself these days. Anyone who thinks otherwise is dreaming.
tsimbeit, I don't understand your metaphor. Are you saying that raising a family in clean air, with clean water to drink and in which to swim, natural food to eat, open spaces to explore (I could go on) is bad? I say that anyone who forces his family members (especially children) to live in the sh&t hole which is Hong Kong if he could otherwise be on a base is committing abuse! Bases ARE good for pilots AND their families.
Kitsune, what is the alternative? Do you really think the company would open JFK as a 777 base WITHOUT the concession of a rolling two-month EFT limit? You might think the company would be desperate to get people out of Hong Kong in order to save housing and education allowance. Well, I think they'd rather spend some extra money to KEEP people in Hong Kong so that they are under control and dependent on the company, therefore being unwilling to take any sort of unified action in order to maintain or secure better working conditions. It is often hard to differentiate between decisions CX makes based on money and those based on control.
We will all be on the conditions the company wants in three years whether we like it or not. We are irreparably fractured as a pilot group.
Think back to the 49ers, when we were supposedly unified. Did we stick together then and insist that the 49ers be reinstated immediately? Do you think there is ANY hope of us sticking together now that we have AOA Canada, AOA Australia and so many different CoS that we can't even count them anymore?
Madness is thinking that when faced with our next ultimatum we will somehow come together and force a result in our best interest rather than that of the company.