You don't get it......the union has nothing to do with directly raising prices, that is management's job. It is management's job to buy fuel as cheap as they can, negotiate rent as cheap as they can, schedule as efficiently as the can and get YOU to work as cheap as they can. After they have all their costs in place they then set their prices and hopefully be competitive enough to attract enough passengers to fly on their airline and make a profit.

The companies don't have any problem raising ticket prices when fuel goes up to cover their additional cost. Just last week AA raised prices $20 roundtrip and the rest of the industry followed. You deserve to be better compensated for your skills, the same way mainline pilots were compensated 40 years ago when they flew 75 seat DC-9-10's.

Here's a little news flash for you, the ONLY reason the regional's are doing the flying is they do it cheaper than mainline, but if regional's did not exist 75 seat airplanes would still be flying on the same routes paying much higher rates.