The simple fact is that if you don't wear one as a long-haul pilot, you run the risk of being identified as someone who doesn't support the cause of fighting to retain our jobs in aircraft with red kangaroos and "QANTAS" painted on the side.
And if someone has weighed it all up, and decided that they are quite grateful to be earning three times the national wage to sit in the third seat, and that with a wife and two young kids they'd rather keep their head down and take a chunk off the mortgage than strike..... you hold that against them and exclude them from social gatherings? That
is pathetic.
I support the QF pilots, and if I worked for QF I'd wear one of the ties, but I would be ashamed of myself and any colleagues who ostracised someone for having a different opinion. Thats just playground stuff.