I am going to be blunt but it seems that the traditionally decent employers do not have these issues (the odd one might slip through the net ofcourse) as they have decent packages and can pick and choose.
So maybe you should ask yourself: why do I work for such a crappy employer?*
But it seems like any thread on prune: “everything was better in the old days.” “The new generation is this and that...” Etc etc. But every generation has said that before you. We tend to romanticize when we think back.
We tend to forget that in the old days there were ****ty airlines with dubious practices as well..
for why t&c’s here are lacking behind the US:
airlines work in a single market but unions can not. Airlines are free to open AOC’s wherever they see fit and hire on different contracts while the unions can only look after the pilots in one country. We should have some sort of pan-european labour protection.