If some Virgin pilots think they are better off working under CAO 48 or have some level of protection, they really have no idea what they are talking about. That document was written decades ago for a very basic airline fraternity. Things are far more diverse these days and as such we need a much more flexible and robust system.
Those pilots who have worked under an exemption or overseas know very well that the flight hours you are doing now will change very little. What will change is the duty hours. YOU WILL ALL WORK LESS .
Getting rid of CAO 48 does nothing other than give the airline more flexibility when it needs it. We write our own set of rules that suit both parties, include a fatigue management sytem and also open up a bidding process. That is a far better scenario than we have at the moment. I think sometimes we need to pull our head out of the rear end and take a more objective look around.
3 years ago many people were bleeting on this forum how Virgin would never work. I suspect some of the same now work for Virgin. This new EBA may well fall short of your expectations but keep the big picture in mind. We are only 2 &1/2 years old. Come 2005, only another 2 &1/2 years away and things will have settled a bit. The first thing we should all do is GET RID OF CAO 48 as fast as we can. We all get a pay rise, we all get a better quaility of life and we all get more time to sit here and dumbfound the oratory masters of days gone by with our dialectical bastardary!