Sorry,
But we to have our share of those same beancounters here in the US of A, but with a bit of solidarity, groups manage to obtain enough power to get more than just the crumbs. Even Continental pilots, after Frank Lorenzo, 2 visits to the bankruptcy court, and almost a third visit, finally said to management, "go pound sand!" "You are going to pay us more." UAl, DAL, and soon AMR, and Atlas have shown that pattern bargining is back to stay; in good times and bad. My airline bargins with Boeing for planes, with airports for gates, with lawyers for political access, etc. I can just imagine the laughter if our CEO asked BP for a break on the jet fuel prices because he thought it was going to be a bad year and wanted to protect his share holders earnings. Good luck.
I always tell my union comrades, "You don't get paid what your worth, you get paid what you bargin for." That goes for Shell Oil, Airbus and most especially pilots. Of course I tell management, "You don't pay me all this money for what I do, you pay me for what I can do."
While I don't mean to be contentions, I am sorry but I have to put most of the blame on the pilots that just won't fight for more. Be the more: respect, money, time off, etc. Even the Atlas pilots finally said that they don't work on some Paki rice farmer's plantation, and you will pay more, a lot more. It's too bad he didn't live to see the way labor in his adopted country has the ability to grab a place at the table and bargin, but rest assure his sucessors will. (And I do not work for Atlas.) At any rate it seems that many brits have that surf mentality, (actually a lot of the europeans seem to have it), and I don't know if it is a hold over from the socialism days, the welfare state, or what. For god sakes don't you remember what the empire used to be?
With luck the Germans will show the EU pilots the way out. Support them for your own sake.