Brother RightsFlyer - I have no axe to grind against unions per se - in their place they do an excellent job for people that need their help and assistance.
What I am very strenuously opposed to are the bully-boy tactics employed by them; and in particular as I have already said their emphasis on the "rights" of their members whilst at the same time denying those rights to others.
This debate also opens up another question.
Are pilots true professionals - in which case they don't need unions (though it could be argued that the Bar Association and the BMA are the lawyers' and doctors' 'unions' respectively) - or are they really just highly paid blue collar workers (in effect, aerial bus or truck drivers)?
As someone pointed out on another thread, the US airline with the best industrial relations (and indeed profitability) record is Southwest - which is unionised. It comes down to the relationship between management and staff - is there a "them and us" attitude? If so, you've got problems. Or is it a "we're all in this together and not only are we going to make it work but we're going to have a damn good time doing it" attitude? Then you've got a success story!
I've long supported the Southwest way of doing things - open door management; management doing line jobs to keep their ear close to the ground and seeing what problems or shortcust (if any) can be found; involving not just the employee but their whole family in order to both create a support mechanism and to ensure that resentment from spouses about spanding time away is minimised; employee share ownership and profit sharing; providing the best staff benefits in the most cost effective manner etc etc.
There's no doubt that it can be done.