Ummm.... I believe picketing and going on strike is what brought this profession from basically "bus drivers" but more dangerous in the 30's to what it became in the heyday- a professional career.
Do you think companies just volunteered to pay pilots that much?
So picketing and striking is all it took for pilots to turn this into a professional career? Well then, that should fix everything - let's all go down and picket. That'll get things turned around.
Picketing and striking are tools that should only be used sparingly. To pull them out of the toolbag on a monthly (or even annual) basis, as is happening now, reduces their effect to zero. That's old school.
But you dodged my original statement. When's the last time that you saw doctors or lawyers picket?