This seems to have got a bit of the subject raised by the OP.
Don't want to get into a personal discussion, but one of the protaganists stated that he/she was a member of two unions and was still waiting for the slightest hint from them about the so called cancer.
You are not a member of the union, you are the union. Have you suggested that the union form a group to look into the problem. Have you volunteered to give up some of your time for nothing, like your union reps do for you, in order to form that group. Have you lobbied the CAA or members of parliment or whatever you have in the country you live in. Either do that or don't moan that "no one has done anything", because you are the same as them. Sorry to have a go at you but I have been a (voluntary and unpaid) union rep in the past, and too many people thing all you have to do is pay your dues and things will be done for you...they won't.
To answer the OPs question I think the answer is no. I got into flying commercially in the "old times". I washed aeroplanes and cut grass and answered telephones in exchange for flying hours. I sold my motorbike to pay for an instructors rating, then instructed for six years, then flew single crew at home and abroad for another six before I was lucky enough to get into the right hand seat of a two crew aircraft and could finally afford to pay a mortgage. Since I started instructing in 1982 there have been a few blips, but probably no more than three years in total, when it has been "easy" to get a job, but it has always been a slog - the difference now is that everyone starts off thinking that they are fully qualified because they have a frozen "ATPL" rather than a CPL or BCPL, and they have had lots of spin from Oxford/Cabair/FTE/etc about being "airline pilots" rather than just "pilots".
Unfortunately, having seen how the industry works for 30 years I think it is safe to say that we will never go back to the good old days. There never were any good old days, just different ones.