I have never seen the Air France pilot contract but I bet it's a whole lot cushier than any of ours in the states. This is mostly due to a labor friendly environment where workers can stand up to management when they feel they need to.
One of the things I'm hoping for under the new administration is a whole sale rewrite or outright elimination of the Rail Way Labor Act. It is flagrantly anti labor and have kept our hands tied for decades. Without it most of us would still have pensions, pay and work rules because management would KNOW that it would cost them more to take a strike than to leave the pensions intakt. Hey. It's my dream and I can dream it as much as I want!