The arguments and counter-arguments between the 'true believers' (unionists) and the 'individualists with the right to decide what's best for themselves' (apologists for pilots employed during strikes) is like a CVR endless loop tape - the same protagonists (myself included) making the same points over and over again.
Maybe it's time to accept that this argument is a bit like two people from vastly disparate cultural backgrounds discussing religion. There's no hope of agreement because there's simply no common ground to start with.
Perhaps because this is a UK-based web site, (and perhaps not), many of the 'individualists' seem to be UK-based, so I'm wondering if this difference of opinion isn't in the main a cultural thing. Although the majority of people now resident in the ex-colonies can trace they family trees back to the Old Dart, I'd make so bold as to say the England of today bears very little resemblance to the country - and the culture - that the now colonials' great great grandparents left, (either willingly - or not so willingly, under 18th or 19th century 'assisted passages' courtesy of HMG).
Those who did arrive in the new lands quickly found they simply had to co-operate to survive in what were often extremely harsh and unforgiving circumstances - both natural and man-made. The 'individualist', who always looked to himself with an attitude of 'devil take the hindmost', frequently came unstuck because like it or not, in the harsh colonial environment, he needed friends quite frequently just to survive, let alone prosper. This engendered a fierce tribalism in the majority of these people, an innate understanding of the common good and a fair go for all.
What was honed in the frozen wastes of the Canadian north or the opposite extremes of the Australian or African bush became national characteristics when those fledgling nations sent their sons to war in defence of the Old Country. The people in England saw that these young men had become subtly (and often not so subtly!) different to their own sons. Roughly spoken, frequently rough in manners and totally dismissive of authority, these men would speak their minds and make no attempt to hide their feelings or their opinions of people who had not earned their respect. They did this even to those whose position on the social tree demanded respect (or at least a public pretence of it). They also did not understand something every English child understood almost from the moment he drew his first breath, the all important matter of class and where one stood - and remained because that's what you born to - on the complex English social class tree.
Like all generalisations, this argument has some gaping holes. There are people in the each of the countries - and quite large groups of them - who'd fit far more comfortably into the mould I've drawn for the other group than into their own so-called 'national character', (eg, supposedly the person who started this thread). But the fact remains, there seems to be a large proportion of the UK population - or from within that section of it from which many pilots are drawn - who honestly and quite sincerely see nothing untoward or dishonourable in taking a short term personal advantage at another's expense. Perhaps it's time we colonials came to accept this as a fact of life.