411A- Excellent question! It must be a complex answer, depending on which airline situation. It must have something to do with mutual defense, and the exact timing and calculated repercussions from the company.
As for the recent AMFA talks at NWA, I'm still scratching my head. AMFA is not in the AFL-CIO (general US union group), and apparently had very little or no funds ("war chest") set aside to help its members weather a strike, and knew that Bush would start a PEB process. Their national AMFA leaders seem to have understood neither the terrain nor enemy, as was the case with Varus and his three Roman legions marching in narrow columns (too little space for "testudo" shield walls) in the German forest (9 AD: [Arminius] Hermann's tribes were waiting-18,000+ wiped out in three days), along with Napoleon at Waterloo, very complacent.
Pardon the overdramatic comparisons.