I'm not trying to bash you or the unions, I'm actualy trying to help you. The industrial revolution is over, in case you have not heard. This is now the information age. Knowledge workers are the only ones who can command an above average wage. It's not to late for many of you. Get some education, training, learn a knowledge based skill. There are numerous grants, loans and subsidies for those who seek them. God gave you a brain, try using it. Sorry, there is just no room at the inn for unions in the information age. Machines and foriegners are more than willing to do work Unions had made their mainstay. Machines and foriegners do not scream for benefits, or threaten work stoppages.
Not certain where you get your infantile ideas about unions, but, with a few notable exceptions, most unions have been responsible for giant changes in the workplace, especially, in the areas of safety and benefits.
For instance, the pilots unions have all funded research for safer flight, almost all through the dues structure, with very little help from the affected corporations.
A well-run union of self-respecting employees can actually help a corporation to run better, more efficiently and ultimately save them money, over, say, the way USAIrways is run.
Contrary to your juvenile view of labor relations, most intelligent upper managers look forward to interfacing with a well-run union. Of course, if your managers are not so smart, then their fear will ensure a bad situation, screaming and yelling will ensue.
Posting here wishing things were better will not change the simple economics of the airline industry. The same greed that guides CEO's is the same greed that compels the rank and file to demand higher wages. Please recongize the irony I see when union chaps start picking at corporate greed. Please, kettle meet pot. Those with the knowledge and exp of how to organize labor and capitial have created a market for you to sell your services (read skills). Not everyone, i.e. very few ppl have the know how or ability to organize large sums of capital and human resources into a profit generating enterprise. No one owes you jack in this life. You make yourself valuable, and set your own wage level by acquiring skills demanded in a free and self adjusting labor market.
Its never too late.
Your arrogance is pretty interesting, and I can see that your less than average abilities combined with natural desires to get ahead would lead most anyone to think you are greedy.
I don't think "greed" means what you think it does. A desire to advance oneself is rarely "greed". To advance oneself at the expense of others, likely, is.
It is said one is only worth what one negotiates, a rule you might wish to think about. When negotiators limit themselves, they risk excluding possible solutions that might work out for all parties, hence, it is generally thought that openers be as wide-ranging as possible, leading ignorant fellas like you to think the union or management is being "greedy".
As far as Mr. Glass goes, we really don't know whether he is good or bad, the USAIrways employees really never fought him at all, simply running away, refusing to educate themselves to defuse vague threats, conceding the field well before he was ever really tested.