boac, you have been fortunate to be a part of the halcyon days of the airline industry.
A significant part of the issue is that employees are not regarded as staff by managment. I read some thing a while ago related to HR issues (was an article for HR professionals) was that the staff in an organisation should read the management staff. This means that all other employees are, what, production units? In light of this 'paradigm' (to use managment newspeak) a whole lot of what has transpired in the Australian industrial relations landscape makes a whole lot more sense.
The issue that you have raised regarding the loss of corporate memory is significant. I remember that several Dangerous Goods incidents (and potential accidents) were caught be switched on ramp staff who had the experience to see that "something doesn't look right". I mean no disrespect to todays "pit crew" but the casualsation of the workforce is a safety issue. Consider Valujet in Florida where a college student working part-time saw nothing wrong with loading live O2 generators on to an aircraft. Do you think that the ground staff employed by Aerocare stay around long enough to get a feel for our safety-sensitive industry? How can they when their average employment time is around 4 months!