A mate of mine is close to a few people in ops and crewing at Rex. They told him that from their perspective, crew essentially working to rule - not working on days off and not extending etc - would lead to short-term pain for them but that overall they supported the idea. Reason being, only a skyrocketing cancellation rate would make the management committee sit up and take notice... and that would be the only chance of getting a strong EBA under which crew would actually want to help out. Short term pain for ops and crewing (and of course Rex pax), long term better off for all. Makes sense to me.
It MUST be consistant however. Pilots need to tell the poor sod from crewing who calls them for a casual day that "I am not interested because I believe we need a better EBA" or similar, so that when the other poor sod in Ops calls the Management Committee for 'approval' to cancel a flight due no crew and is asked by said MC why crew are not extending or coming on casual days, they can look 'em in the eye and say "because the crew want a better EBA".
I've said it before myself. It MUST be consistant. One in, all in. And the MC, the media, the union, other Rex staff and of course Rex passengers need to be aware that this is the real reason that their flight has no pilots.