@2unlimited: I think you do again not understand. The point is supply and demand, if there are no 1000 other captains waiting to get a job at the company it will be the company that will be afraid to loose 1000 self employed captains (they do not need to unite formally they can have unformalized closed forum for example)...... so firing them would just make the problem come at the airline immediately that means: no one to fly the aircraft...... As I said its supply and demand. Of course its pointless for anyone to negotiate anything if there are 1000 new captains waiting for the job at that airline, but the day the demand for captains is bigger than supply.....
As for the fatigue I understand what you mean but people who are employed as employees have exactly the same problem. So why do you blame it on self employment if the problem is exactly the same for employees ?? As for self employment actually if the airline decide it will pay for fatigue it will do so to everyone also self employed. Just as LOT Polish Airlines gave EVERYONE 45 hours guaranteed payment its not like if you are self employed you do not get the same terms and conditions. Still you believe self employment is something bad.