Going back to posts 23 and 24, mhk77, I also find it hard to understand why, if working conditions in EK are so bad, the crews are, as you say, so much more service orientated than BA (QF I don't find too bad).
I know a couple of EK CC as family friends, but haven't really discussed this with them. They like living in DXB and are both married to men who have high earning jobs, and they live in 'luxury' and have high disposable incomes. It would be my idea of hell but perhaps what makes them happy is that they live in this artifical world and can spend their entire income on designer clothes and expensive rounds of Chardonnay and Veuve Cliquot with the girlies at fancy bars.
I also wonder if unions are a bad thing. The rabble rousers who run them, and who profit from the members, stir up discontent and are constantly telling members how badly they are treated - when they're not. Whereas EK staff have no unions, so they get on with the job and know that if they don't do it properly, they're out, as they have no protection.
I am, obviously, totally opposed to Unions because of the trouble they cause. They may at one time have had a legitimate purpose in employee protection but I think now they have just become a weapon used in the wrong way and like many weapons, serve only to inflame situations.