Airline unions appear to be, but the way the seniority incentives work give us the current outcome. If you assume that total pilot pay for the airline is fixed

Airline unions appear to be, but the way the seniority incentives work give us the current outcome. If you assume that total pilot pay for the airline is fixed and pay goes linearly with seniority (just to keep it simple and concrete), then increasing the wages of entry-level pilots requires reducing the wages of senior pilots. If you further assume that all pilots are perfectly selfish (that is, they'll never vote themselves a pay cut), then 50% of the votes automatically go to keeping new pilot wages low. There will also be a contingent of just-below-median pilots who have paid their dues and are looking forward to the fat paycheck that comes with being in the top 50%. Transferring pay from high-seniority to low-seniority hurts the lifetime wages of this group, so they'll vote against it, too. Thus new pilots are paid a pittance and old pilots are paid handsomely. I'd think this still works even if the pay scale is strangely-shaped.