It was not quite that pleasant Unionist. The unions had far to much say in all airlines at that time. Most managers were not bastards. For a start most came from the hangar floor or the flight deck, and had a fair idea what they were talking about.(not like the beancounters you have today). The strike in the early eighties was a dispute by cabin crew over the galleys in the SP 747 and yes they were supported by other unions on the base. Tthe poisoning of pilots was caused by a few pilots who took it upon themselves to make uncalled for remarks to gay cabin attendents about the spreading of AIDS, who in return "rimmed" their food. Yes, you are correct, QF came very close to going broke not because of bad management but because the country was going thru a downturn. The three major airllines were then TAA, Ansett and Qantas, they were all top heavy to a degree, but good to work for, well run, excellent engineering, and excellent standards in flight training, and most of all, a souce of pride to their employees. Sadly that has just about all gone. In the name of the dollar. But one thing remains, despite QF treating its staff badly, the staff in return still stick blindly to their loyality, always have, probably always will, and QF marches on and flys inspite of its self. It is truly an enigma, far better brains than myself have tried to work out, some of its crazy ideas, like about every four years, its shreds staff, normally the best it has and starts hiring people who have no idea, and it does this every four years, breaks up depts, fires good managers, and then goes back to sleep again.You can almost set your watch by it. A career company it is not, and has a reputation as not a good place to start in business for any post graduate with a business degree. We were lucky Unionist, we saw the best of that world, despite all the failings, it was a good place to be.