if you can read italian or get a decent translation go and get first hand info on italian pilots unions websites
www.anpac.it and
www.unionepiloti.it you will see that (from my point of view but I'm not an "expert") they are not asking anything strange.
for example
here you can find an interesting document, in brief:
As alitalia management often cite european major airlines as an example of pilots efficiency, unione piloti proposed to use the lufthansa pilot contract but with a 20% lower pay, strangely enough alitalia refused, they (the management) continue to push a pilot contract made by the same consulting firm that made the gandalf airlines recovery plan (gandalf airlines was declared bankrupt some months ago) and that requires alitalia pilots to fly to the italian FTL limits: 13 hours flight 17 duty with 2 pilots and 20 hours flight 24 duty with 3 pilots over a maximum of 6 sectors and without any limit about when the duty starts/ends. And form what I understand they don't want to aplly it only to new entrants but to the whole pillot force.
I'm not totally sure but In another forum an ex alitalia guy wrote that with the present alitalia pilot contract a pilot can't get more than 2.800 euro per month (flying an average of 70/75 hours per month) in the first 10-11 years of his/her career.
Seen from this point of view it seems they are just fighting to survive, but media always speak about pilots "privileges", may be this apply to a certain amount of old chaps under a very old contract but people who joined in the last few years may be a bit disappointed, as 2800 euro per month after 10 years don't seem to me a "privilege".