Same old industry  

for unions being formed to represent the airline pilots there'd be the same experience in that line of work.

Reason it came to fruition is because each airline had very few centers of operation where pilots could gather to express 'solidarity', aka give us what we want or else.  That will never happen in the helicopter industry due to many many small bases and no way to, so to say, enforce, solidarity.  

Not really a lack of intelligence in the RW community, just the dynamics of geography that disallow the reality of pilots doing what they need to do to stay together on topics, union demands, etc.

Solve this problem and the industry may have a chance, otherwise, nah, no hope.