Ok.
I'm a long-time lurker, but with about 10,000TT, and retired USAF with 21 years of service, I feel driven to respond to the original retort.
FMGEC, you may think you're special. But you're nothing more than hourly labor hired to do a predetermined job for the man.
The odor of exceptionalism reeks from your post. (You were what, an O-5 or above?) Let me clue you into something, you are nothing more than hired help.
We all are VERY highly skilled labor; our educational background and work history attest to this. But you seem to take the position that you (we) are something above the $7.25 an hour janitor.
Yes. We are several orders of magnitude above him. But we are also of the same working class as him.
Your attitude that we are his betters is, frankly, obscene.
Pilots are a group of employees that execute a task for the benefit of the company. You are not management. You are no longer in a position to decide the outcomes of the strategic goals of the corporation.
You are employee #XYZ.
Do your job and go home.
Unions are a disagreeable necessity, in my opinion, but they are NECESSARY, g*d damm*t! You will never accomplish a damned thing on your own against the company. The only strength you have is in our numbers.
If you think you're so special, have at it. I'll be watching with a full bag of popcorn.