If I would sum it up, this is what I think has happened. SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) with months of planning and coordination up the sleeve, set into motion a plan that in essence was something like this.
1. The owners are aware that he company is going to craps.
2. Keep it a secret until a week or so before total meltdown.
3. Blow it up in everybody's especially the staffs faces, induce stress, text messages, twitter, irrational directives, and seemingly perpetual meetings.
4. Build up anxiety in the staff, make them worried, concerned for their paycheck, keep everyone in a constant state of insecurity and make them feel guilt.
5. Negotiate panic style, all or nothing, long and late hours, sleep deprivation, and irrational and shocking methods to put your opposing parties out of balance. Like dragging the negotiator into a dark room with the management staring him down and only an agreement and a pen on the table.
6. When the counterpart is exhausted, disoriented and on the verge of a nervous brake down, present the new agreement as if it was an ultimatum, all or nothing, live or die.
This is basically an implementation of "reinforced interrogation" techniques, also commonly known to have been used as a brainwashing technique. The problem is, any contract signed under these circumstances would be considered null and void in any decent court of law. Most civilized countries have laws against these kind of methods in trying to manipulate a counterpart into an agreement.
Then, voila! What do we have? Costs are reduced. Obnoxious unions and the workforce are subdued and the value of the company on the market just sky rocketed. This is what I believe, the owners of SAS are planning to sell the company. Now they have scared the staff half to death and in the process cleaned the slate for the new would be owner, and the price tag just got a lot higher. Could it even be that the actual buyer is already in play?
