Almost all of us are "part of the system" to some degree or another.
Everyone draws the line in a different place for different issues at different stages in their career. An example, would be someone who elected to never fly a freighter nor work a "G day" for over a decade, but ultimately ends up as a trainer. Meanwhile his colleague, who decries the idea of going into training, accepts freighter flying so that he could get his temporary basing for that year. You could easily argue that both are wrong for playing into the hands of the Company. But it is impossible (and a waste of time) to say who is a more "hard-core Unionist" than the other. I doubt that more than a handful of pilots in the Company could stand up to total scrutiny of the most absolute of the work-to-rule purists.
The Company will always fill vacant positions with pilots. Our flights will be crewed, through recruitment, training, rostering and manipulation there-of. Similarly, our pilot management positions will also always be filled, and we will continue to fight the same old battles anyway.
I think that rather than discourage people from going into management (and training) etc, we should be grooming our own "sleeper agents" to try and take over the 3rd floor from the inside. With retirement age disappearing into infinity, we could be stuck with some of the present 3rd floor incumbents for decades. We desperately need to get the guys we want, up there.