Cypher,
Thats the way things are these days. Industrial protection is very limited, even in Aus. Why do you think that there are more and more casual and contract jobs these days. One reason, so that employers can get rid of employees easily and they have no recourse.
The only way you can provide employees with some sort of protection is to have a strong and united union/association or whatever else you want to call it. Unfortunately this wont be the case with the AOA as their membership is diluted with each new joiner and with each exisiting member that pulls out of the association.
IMHO I think it is time for the AOA to drop the ban and allow all to rejoin/join and develop a new course of action and do it as a united group.
BTW I am not a CX employee and I do believe that the company could have handled the situation in a better way than they did with the 49ers.