I do agree with you.
I can remember repeating over and over again, at various meetings, the mantra about the benefits of a happy, motivated workforce. The management always agreed - in principle - but at the time, we were always in either financial or operational difficulties, and the management simply could not afford to give away ANY flexibility without risking the flying programme... so the crews always ended up being disadvantaged.
I still have a number of email exchanges on various crewing and operational matters, and I can assure you that managers were sympathetic, but hamstrung.
Things changed a lot when JF took over, and I found him to be a very reasonable and pro-active guy. He went out of his way to sort out some of the issues we had. The internal Open Channel forum also had some notable successes (although most crews probably never knew that).
I can also vouch for the fact that on several occasions, the company spent significant amounts of money to alleviate crewing problems. Again, this may not have been apparent to many crews.
I suppose my point is that with most of the flybe managers I knew, the will to do the right thing by the crews was there, but it was difficult to carry through in the environment that they were in (remember, the last few years have seem extraordinary changes in the company). I suspect that the mindset of "yes, but not now" may still be quite entrenched. I can't speak for the new guys who arrived after I left, of course. Still trying to figure out what this Cheese guy is all about.
For that reason, I suspect that the "negotiations" may not go quite the way you hope. Not because flybe see it as a "battle", but for the old reason of maintaining maximum operational flexibility and minimum cost.
BTW, one of the stormier meetings in flybe occurred just after JF took over... and was presented with the monthly HOTAC spend. I understand that the language used was abrupt and to the point!