cerbus,
You keep saying, what you say is the truth. No, sir, I believe it is your point of view and your perception (which in turn is your reality). Others' reality is somewhat different and circustances from which others come from are different. Therefore, they don't waste their time on this board.
Give me an airline that will pay your salary (not flt pay) for a year while you recover from an accident, illness or whatever, not ask any questions, not have to use allocated leave to cover one's salary etc., any day.
Are things perfect here? Oh hell no. Could things be better? You bet. But if I ever meet you and you can convince me that airline abc or airline xyz is perfect without warts and blemishes, all the beer for a year is on me. But I will agree that the major downside of EK is having to live in Dubai. EK can't fix that, but you should have known or researched living in the ME before you arrived.
Bitch and moan all you want about Dubai, the heat, the infrastructure, the traffic, the laws..........But EK is like 90% of big time airlines around the world, good and bad. Union? Might have to go to a little higher paygrade than TC or MF. You might have to do some info picketing in front of Sheik Mo's villa. See where that gets you. Have fun.