As I tromped onto an aged United Airlines plane last month in Los Angeles, I discovered a relic: an Empower port, a first-generation DC-to-AC power supply to allow travelers to plug in their electronic gear.

Having discarded my Empower adapter years ago, I asked a flight attendant if she had one aboard to lend.

"You're kidding. Your power port is working?" she asked, truly astonished, as she rushed to my seat to witness for herself that the green light was illuminated over the roundish slot. "I can't remember the last time one of those was actually working."

A few hours into the long-haul flight, I tracked down the flight attendant in the galley and got what I knew would be her tale of woe: long hours and deteriorating working conditions worsened by a decade of wage-and-benefit givebacks—all while coping with United's revolving-door management and the never-ending demands of entitled "elite" frequent flyers and "I want my money's worth" $99 one-way vacationers.

The conversation seems almost quaint now after the last week's shocking events at the Australian carrier Qantas, the world's 10th-largest airline.

Just hours after Qantas' board of directors decided to skip shareholder dividends for another year and voted chief executive Alan Joyce a 71 percent pay raise, Joyce abruptly grounded the airline, planned to lock out employees, and stranded an estimated 70,000 flyers around the world. Joyce's logic: An ongoing series of industrial actions protesting his plans to lay off 1,000 Australians and outsource huge chunks of Qantas' future to lower-cost Asian nations made it imperative for him to gain the upper hand over recalcitrant labor unions.

Qantas is flying again, thanks to the Australian government's emergency appeal to a labor-relations tribunal. Fair Work Australia, an amped-up Down Under version of our National Mediation Board, ordered Qantas to resume flying, required Joyce to abandon his lockout, and insisted that the carrier's unhappy labor unions stop their job actions. Should the parties be unable to come to a negotiated agreement in 21 days, an arbitrator will impose a deal.

Joyce's maneuver was roundly condemned by the Australian government and blasted by a majority of Australians, who consider the formerly government-owned "Flying Kangaroo" a matter of national identity and pride. But talking-head business "experts" praised Joyce's bold action and determination to impose his vision of Qantas' future on both his labor force and his passengers.

There's just one problem with that assessment: To mollify his most lucrative customers, frequent business travelers, Joyce is expected to launch a double-miles-bonus campaign. To win back price-sensitive customers who are defecting to Qantas's local (Virgin Australia) or international (Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines, Emirates) competitors, Joyce is readying a gigantic advertising campaign and fare sale that will cut into the carrier's financial performance. (Joyce's shutdown cost Qantas at least A$40 million, and he claimed union actions cost the airline A$70 million.)

In the never-ending race to the bottom that is life on the road today, the Qantas situation is generically reflective of the reality: Bosses earn more money than ever, stiff shareholders, blame their companies' financial woes on travelers for refusing to pay enough for flights or hotel rooms, then go to their workforces for extraordinary concessions. When labor unions resist, the bosses do something bizarre that wins praise from analysts, but infuriates customers. To win the customers back, the bosses slash prices, thus starting the cycle all over again.