At my airline the vp of operations told me that we were not going to get an industry leading contract but would get one somewhere in the middle.

I wish I had known the followup questions to ask, but at this airline you don't really want to ask a followup question if you want to have a job the next day. If I could I would ask how we would get pilots into the door at those rates? Looking at it today, I think his response would be that the bonuses are here to stay. They are too profitable for the airline. They can pay 90% of the pilots well below market rates and simply give the new guy a few extra dollars.

I think we need to face the fact that giving bonuses to the new guy has replaced contract rates and even market rates of pay. If you want to get paid a fair wage after the first year you had better head out of the country.

Just think of how effective the bonus is in saving the company money; they can advertise starting pay at 30k or 40k and everyone will assume it goes up rapidly from there. Who would guess that it would go down? Everyone else, take what you are given because the bonuses are here to stay.