Pay is great, company works with the pilots really well. Work rules are fine. Things will stay this way for a while. Pilots live in a dream world, and will not vote to keep the Union. As soon as it's decertified they'll wake up to a different world. By "wake up", I mean to a voice at 3:00 AM that wants to know how soon you can be airborne. All ya gotta do is tell them that you won't be going because someone told you that you never have to go. Just like you were told, if your horoscope says don't fly today, that is enough. Just roll over and go back to sleep; except the voice on the other end tells you that you can't refuse the trip, so you go. Five legs later you get a call saying your attitude doesn't meet the Flex Options standards, and you are being watched. After a year or so of this crap, if you haven't been fired, the light will finally come on, but it will be too late.
Somewhere along the way you'll realize those things you were promised never materialized because you didn't get them in writing. Sure, your pay is the same, but with no raises. How about that 401k Match - gone. Cost of you family medical plan - through the roof. How many days are you going to work next rotation? Don't worry, they'll eventually let you come home. But you fell for all his crap, didn't you. But it isn't your fault, you're not naive, after all this is the guy who wrote "Management by Trust" isn't it?
As your dream career circles the drain, it will finally dawn on you that the Union exists so that these promises will be recorded in a legally binding document. No lies, no broken promises. And that, my friend, is precisely why your new master despises the Union and will tell you anything to get you to vote against it.
