<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by gear down:
money is not their target - their target is for better roster practices. if it's about money, this industrial action would have been over and done with when cathay offered them the attractive package.</font>
it is definitely money, roaster is only an excuse.
for the salary numbers quoted, i believe both sides are quoting to their own advantages -- what they need is someone like watson wyatt as to make the benchmarking
read the new issue of "economists" -- it said US pilots (e.g. UA) got a big raise last year, and that the pilots now have a good channel to compare compensation.
therefore it might be right that CX base pay is lower than US pilots. however, taken into account housing/education/etc. CX pilots are probably still well paid. (and perhaps higher than US airlines in absolute $ terms)
what CX should do is either call in some neutral HR/compensation company to settle this, or be very transparent in compensation (if they think they are on the right side)
e.g. they could simply propose an option of cash only package (no housing, no education) and match that to some weighted average (based on current mix of pilot base) cash package of the pilot's benchmark