Condor, I commend you on your research. I have skipped superficially over these three posts and have promised myself that I will follow all the links through in the next couple of days.
As anybody on this aviation-related thread would, I wondered about the reason behind the post; after all, support for the "Painters and Doctors" from the more conservative side of town was something even a Sunday tabloid headline writer wouldn't have come up with. It was only in post 3 that the suspected link with 1989 became explicit.
As someone exposed early on to the stories of the first stuttering attempts at unionism, so brutally smashed by the fearful business leaders of the time, my natural sympathies were with the principles of unionism as a way to gain a slice of dignity and respect for the working man. These ideals were soured for me somewhat in the 70's when the industrial thuggery of the BLF and WWF proved to be a pseudo-political front that enriched the corrupt leaders of the unions to the same level as the business leaders they were railing against. Multi-millionaire socialists don't and never did impress me, but my underlying support for the principles of unionism never left me. It is, or should be, simply part of a system of checks and balances; neither side should be allowed to get out of control. What then of the 89 dispute?
*Opinion* The AFAP had for years sniffed at their blue collar cousins; they simply didn't need them. They had almost unlimited power, and like the AMA, it was a "union" concerned not with the shop floor or exploitation of the underclass, but purely with the financial position of its well-heeled members, and any suggestion that it join the ACTU was rejected scornfully. Indeed, even a suggestion that in a spirit of comradeship they may have given the ACTU a nod when it needed one was flatly rejected.
It is this apparent sanctimoniousness that got on many people's goat (including mine) when the 89'ers start huffing and puffing about the unforgivable attack on the very fundamentals of unionism, which they had previously found it unnecessary to acknowledge even in principle. Yes, they (you?) were shafted. Yes, a few corrupt and rich members of the meritocracy took pleasure in attempting to destroy them, and succeeded in destroying a lot of lives in the process. People were forced to make decisions that those who haven't been in that position can only have nightmares about. Nobody in their right mind can take any pleasure in that, and as somebody not directly involved I have friends on both sides of the dispute and refuse to take sides.
But I am assuming, and I may be wrong, that this sudden burst of research from a pilot in HK is designed once again to try to stir the embers of outrage among fair-minded people. If so, I doubt you will raise the interest of many outside the dispute. By the way, while the tactics used by Howard and Reith were despicable in the extreme, you will find that even among those committed to the principles of unionism, there was little sympathy for those on the waterfront. Years of institutionalised thievery and industrial blackmail may give a warm inner glow to those in on the joke, but to everyone else, they were thugs who gave the union movement a bad name and deserved what they got. Apply that as you will.
It's quite possible that in my brief skim over your three posts I have badly misread something. I will give them a more thorough reading tomorrow, and apologise if necessary.