If you don't fight you lose...
Seriously though, you're assuming that the board would allow the staff to be a part of the solution, and that the board wants a solution.
Over the years many Qantas staff, groups of staff and unions (including the ALAEA) have suggested improvements and cost saving options to management, only to be ignored. Many of them are detailed in the pprune vaults. Being nice has not worked, in fact from what I read on here and hear in the real world, being Part Of The Solution is actively discouraged at Qantas.
If the company is run by people who either wilfully want it to fail or are so incompetent that failure appears to be the only possible outcome, then the staff's opinions, motivation or demeanour is unimportant.
Neither the government nor public opinion can prevent a company board from running their company badly, so I don't think either is really all that important.
IMO all that will happen if the staff play 'nice' is that the board and the shareholders will continue to screw them over, but the issue will disappear out of the media entirely. I think that would either be bad for the staff's cause or have no effect whatsoever.
Just my opinion. I think you'd be correct for any normal company, but this isn't a normal company. As the years go by they just seem to get weirder and weirder.
