In W's defense, at least in the case of NW, both parties seem quite happy with the contract reach. Even in the DL case, the pilots certainly cannot claim to have been screwed by W promising to stop the strike. In fact, the one case where he didn't intervene was the Comair strike, and those pilots definitely took it in the shorts for striking.

Threatening to strike in this atmosphere is career suicide. Liek anothe rposter said, if I were UA I'd fire every single one who went on strike and hire some of the layoffs from another company. F*** 'em.