I almost wished there were more none union airlines, but strangely enough, after a few years of the rugged individuals achieving industry leading pay and benefits, the slackers end up voting the union in.....
For all the heroes who made JB captain pay AND got a company car while being in IT/CEO/NASA, you miss one important distinction. Being the best gets you further up the ladder in virtually any career, even if you don't change companies, because promotions are (or at least should be) based on merit. You can take your experience and get a great job somewhere else at more than first year pay.
As an airline pilot you need all that experience and qualifications to get hired but from that point you have to follow SOP. There is only one way to do your job: the company way. There is nothing extra really, and definitely nothing less you can do. This strict adherence to SOP has led to most years in the USA having NO fatalities, whereas the hospitals kill about 250.0000 per year. Doctors can take their expertise to another state if they are fired for medical malpractice, because there is no FMA that requires a check ride every 6 months,or requires a company to do a 10 year background check to hire anyone. These and other things make it much harder for pilots to be mobile, so most companies have adopted seniority as the preferred system for advancement. You can argue it's not fair, but I'm sure that for every example of someone getting screwed by seniority, I can show you an example of someone getting screwed by not being buddies with the chief pilot.
As for unions, I don't care if you say necessary or necessary evil, but if you think not required I hope you can take some time and read up on Ryanair. It started as a great company to work for, and as pilots became more available, turned into a crappy place to go to. The only people who tried to improve would get fired, they started hiring people on zero hour contracts. Every one had to pay for Typeratings. People are getting bypassed for upgrade, because DEC... Guess what: union drive in progress.
Yes, union takes 2% of my pay. They also negotiated a 34% raise, will defend me if I **** of the chief pilot because I don't want to fly fatigued/into Bogota without APU/without catering on a 5 hour flight, use my commute policy EVERY TIME I COMMUTE.
I almost wish I could have helped the union haters get a non-union pilot job at NK before we got our marginal contract and see how much better they would have done (before getting fired and replaced by a another guy willing to do it for 20% less).