Couple of points:
It is not unusual or unknown for management types to transfer between positions with the union and with the company. If memory serves, FedEx Pilot Association President Frank Fato has also been in FedEx management, as Chief Pilot I believe. So guys "see the light" in both directions and it should not be held against them.
It is no rumor about Homer Deakins' law firm being the one depicted in the movie "Norma Rae." That is a fact. Their union-busting experience goes waaaaaaay back. And they do not come cheap.
Homer flaunts all the money that he makes from the companies he milks. At the beginning of PHI's first contract negotiations, meetings had to be postponed while Mr. Deakins took his family on vacation to Bali. Bali! It was truly galling to realize the amount of money PHI was spending on him - money that the company repeatedly claimed they did not possess to give to employees. It clearly demonstrated to the pilots that PHI was not interested at all in negotiating a fair contract but in fact was only interested in busting the union. It didn't happen.
Luckily, all of the negotiating team members had children and knew how to deal with temper-tantrums, because it is reported that one of Mr. Deakins' first acts of histrionics (and there were many) was to loudly thunder, veins-a-popping, across the table at the negotiating team that they would NEVER see a signed contract! He was wrong.
But such is not a spirit of cooperation. And believe me, every helicopter pilot in the country now has Mr. Deakins' number.
Given that Air Log's President had previously screamed the same thing at his pilots and was wrong too, you'd think that the helicopter companies would stop these childish antics and negotiate like adults. The retention by Air Log of the very expensive hired-gun, Homer Deakins for this go-around disproves that theory! We can plainly see where it's heading. In the end, it just makes the company's tearful pleas of "we just don't have any money" ring terribly false.
I wonder where Mr. Deakins will take his family on vacation to count his money after the Air Log contract is finally settled? Hmm, what could be more expensive than a trip to Bali? Is Richard Branson accepting reservations on his lunar flights yet?