Well,
TNO your post from a couple of pages back deserves a reply - another reply
- not just for you, but for some posters who might need a slight refresher/intro as to what precipitated the events of 1989, and its monumental effect on Australia's airlines.
So allow me to start with a question or two,
TNO.
During your time at
Ansett, did you
ever have a salary increase/decrease, or a change in your conditions of employment?
I'm certain that you would have had annual incrementals - plus, in your case, "shift allowances", extra loadings for working on week-ends, public holidays, "back-of-the=clock", overtime, etc, etc.
Of course you realise that in most of those situations (except back of the clock) pilots are NOT paid extra, don't you.
So WHO
negotiated those contractual conditions for you,
TNO - or was it a "non-negotiable.....take it, or leave it deal, as Abeles & Co threw at the pilot group in 1989, when they REFUSED to
negotiate with the AFAP?
Have you never entered a negotiation - be it for your own work conditions, the sale of a car, house, or other property - not asking for MORE than you intend receiving at the closing of the deal?
The AFAP being the pilot appointed negotiators at
ALL contract renewals for the preceding 30-40 years up until 1989.
You DO remember that, don't you
TNO?
So moving on to your quip
....I wonder to which other group of AN employees could that description have been applied?
...I'll happily provide you with an answer to that.
I suggest to you, that "
another group of AN employees [that] that description could have been applied to (a bunch of greedy, self-serving b*****ds)" were the likes of YOU,
TNO 
Sorry old pal, but yes, YOU - who couldn't see past the end of your nose...in fact past your pay packet...as to exactly WHAT the 1989 Dispute was all about.
What is was NOT about, was the pilots trying to achieve a 29.47% pay rise!
It WAS about a group of employees insisting on their right to NOT be forced into a system whereby their employment conditions were run by the State - a facist type system.
That system - known then as "The Accord", was one which the AFAP had agreed the pilots would enter into, for a
trial period, and on a voluntary basis. At the end of that period, the Federation had determined that it was detrimental to remain in The Accord, and wanted out.
Abeles, Murdoch, Hawke, Kelty. etc REFUSED us that "out".
You state,
TNO, that the '89 pilots were being too greedy with their AMBIT (ambit = negotiable) claim, yet the book "
Sky Pirates" written by a neutral observer, Brad Norrington, states that the salaries being offered in the scabs' contracts amounted to almost EXACTLY a 30% salary INCREASE for any Ansett/East-West/TAA/IPEC pilot who signed one.
Had the Dispute been about avarice of $$$'s alone, then the airlines would have been deluged with applications from the Federation pilots in September.
No,
TNO, the "
group of AN employees [that] that description could have been applied to" were those who didn't take heed of the AFAP's printed leaflets titled "
Who will be next?" - the AN employees who saw the scab pilots as the saviours of THEIR jobs, and who happily - mindlessly......except for the thought of perhaps being forced to lose some $$$'s because of the Dispute.....trained the replacements/returnees up.
Short term gain for long term loss,
TNO.
Because,
TNO - whether you realise NOW, or you still don't - OUR fight then, was also YOUR fight!
It was a fight about stopping the GREED of The Fat Man - the greed that ultimately caused
Ansett's demise.
Had there been a few more people who had been willing to look a little deeper into the ACTUAL principles of the Dispute, you -
TNO - and others like you, might
still have been working in
Ansett today.
FYI, there were plenty within
Ansett who supported us - who COULD see what was at stake for them....those who provided the names of the "returnees" and the new joiners, the sort who were typified by the guy who pushed a dinner plate under Captain "lightfingers" nose, with the word
SCAB drawn in the mashed potato.
THOSE are the ex-AN employees for whom I
really feel!
As an aside, it was noteworthy that during a "demonstration march" at BNE airport, we had a wharfie join us - a guy who
could see how employees' rights were being threatened by greedy, facist type employers and a corrupt head of government.
Kind regards.
K.M.