I've seen how excited people get about how much golfers make on just one hole in the Skins Game. How they celebrate their favorite player getting drafted in the first round in the NFL with the big bucks that go along with it. Or how much their favorite actor gets per movie. And on and on. Compare that with the pay of someone who's risking his neck piloting what is essentially a flying building. I don't begrudge them one penny, and if the goal is to be unionized then they're doing what we can only wish for.
Actually, being a pilot/co-pilot or flight engineer is a fairly high-risk profession. Our pilots are extremely well compensated considering they don't generally fly multi-cycle trips. Most of our pilots are ex-military, and they were making decent money there, but nothing compared to what they make at FedEx. For example, I know a C17 pilot who makes $100,000 per year at 26 years old. When he gets out, he'll easily double that.
Pilots that came up the "hard way" flying for commuters and instructing before that, have usually worked many years at low pay before making the majors. The job involves lots of time away from home, but also offers a lot of time off, since flight hours are still restricted to 60 hours per month.
What I would really like to know is the details of their pension and benefit packages, which are undoubtedly far superior to anything we'll ever see. I have never seen a thing describing what they get...other than pay.
Without a union, they'd be making far less, and even though it took a long time, they brokered a deal with El Cheapo that looks pretty good.