I understand what you are saying however I will add that pretty much, if it gets bleak enough, the company will get whatever they want. I don't know when you were hired, however contract 2000 had some pretty good furlough protections. No one to be furloughed that was on the list as of 1 July 2001, 90 days reduced cap before furlough in a category, 75 hour cap while people were on furlough. Well whenever the company needed something they would come to the union and basically say we need this or we are done so there will be no airline to come back to. So the union would vote and the company would get it. So as the pilot group shrank they flew even more and between 2001-late 2004 they were still on c2k rates so guys were sucking up greenslips like vacuum cleaners since "a furlough is temporary, but the hit to my FAE is permanent" Actually said to me by a captain before the pensions went bye bye while he was on a greenslip and I had just been recalled.

I guess this is just a long way to say, they company will ask for what they want. If they really need it, they will pretty much get it AND at the end of the day everyone votes and does what's best for themselves and their families. I had a really hard time with this fact coming from the units I assigned to in the army where you lived or died together. Not so much in the corporate world.