I agree with you GB - there would appear to be very few options available at the moment.
The trouble with the current industrial situation is that it is the Company who makes all the moves and the unions then have to react. The Company knows the game in advance and can work out counter strategies upfront, while the unions are always catching up. I'm sure that the legal counsels (three I think at AIPA) must have been working overtime for the last year or so.
Combined with this, a succession of governments (of both pursuasions) have made industrial action more and more difficult to sanction. Even to the point that CPI increases are not an automatic entitlement under the enterprise bargaining process.
The most alarming development of recent times, in my opinion, was the findings of the high court (I think) at the conclusion of the MWU dock strikes of several years ago. While on the surface, it appeared that the wharfies had won again, the courts upheld a company's right to reorganise its work force.
To put it practically, and if I remember the court's ruling correctly, QF could reorganise itself so that its pilots were employed by the Qantas Crewing Co. Pty Ltd. If this company then started to lose money, theoretically it could declare its employees contracts invalid and open for renegotiation.
I believe that, in this climate, AIPA has little choice but to avoid militant industrial action and continue to explore the limited legal avenues that are open to us. The Company knows that if we were to go on strike, they could find a cheaper replacement workforce very easily - many people on this forum tell us so. We also know that we would not get much backing from other sectors of the industry and that we would be protrayed as silvertails by the press.
With regard to Jetconnect - the trans-Tasman situation is very volatile at the moment and maybe all party's intentions will become a little clearer when the final decision regarding the AirNZ-QF tie-up is announced.