Onlythetruth there is no rational argument. The published schedule is a schedule for passengers and take no account of how the flight is to be crewed, the roster is a document that allocates duties and does not know anymore than is fed into it, the only real plan for a duty day is the report time plus the estimated (realistic) turnaround times plus the computed flight times. Unless these TCX managers are seriously short of brain cells they know/knew this but chose to use to ignore facts and use facetious arguments for punishing someone for not agreeing to their wishes.
As the tribunal said "The limits and flight time and not flying when fatigued are clearly matters related to safety which if breached are potentially harmful to the health and safety of crew". Unfortunately every airline I have worked for looks upon FTLs as an unnecessary inconvenience that is intended, in their minds, to give Airline Pilots an unnecessarily easy lifestyle at the expense of the airline.
Every airline will say 'Safety is our number priority" In my experience this is complete B.S. every airline I have ever come into contact with has staying in business as it number 1 priority. Hull losses are looked upon as a potential commercial disaster not a human tragedy.