"Airborne Again" said-
"I believe that unions artificially inflate wages and drive up the cost of the product to the consumer and ultimately make the company non-competitive and thus the market place will if at all possible look for a more economical alternative."
I can't let that go unremarked upon. The situation in the U.S. is that an artificial surplus of pilots depressed wages for the last 30 years. Now, that's changing, and the change is upsetting a lot of applecarts.
If a company has a union, it's because the compay earned it, and nothing brasses folks off more than their just deserts. If management didn't respect their employees pre-union, I don't expect them to become more reasonable because the employees unite.
Further, that aritificial surplus set cultural precedent for management and pilots. One could say that that allowed expansion of the industry, and I won't argue. That wasn't free, and now some of those costs are coming due.
When the Chief Pilot's got ten resumes per open seat, all from pilots with multiples of company minimums, management can be expected to believe that pilots can be recruited from any "New Orleans gutter". (I beg forgiveness from the late Mr Suggs for further misrepresenting his quote, but it illustrates the point.) That being the situation, pilots learned that it's better to be a new hire than fight to resolve an issue at one's present employer.
That's history. The glut is gone. When I was last in the market a few years ago, there three or four minimally qualified (3000 hr PICs) pilots competing for the seats I looked into. Now, 1500 hours and sometimes great deal less, is a common minimum. The answer at some operators is to scrape the bottom of the barrel and require mandatory overtime, and blame the pilots.
Finally, if you don't get value in a contract, it's your fault. Negotiations fail, sometimes there is no compatible compromise, but if you sign a contract, it's yours- blaming the other party is juvenile.
Are there poorly led unions? Yes. And some dogs bite; some people steal, cheat; and if you look hard enough, you can find evidence for any irrational position. Unions aren't bad for U.S. commercial aviation, they're an excuse for poor management.