A Wild Union Appears! QANTAS Uses Selfdestruct!

[Tee Kay]

Firstly, some background. Three unions representing pilots, engineers and customer services staff of Australia's national airline Qantas have been in conflict with the company's CEOs and management over pay for several months. The dispute had already been running for a while when in August the airline announced plans to outsource jobs to Asia. The unions responded with strikes that forced some flights to be delayed or cancelled. Both sides engaged in increasingly bitter PR offensives that included in-flight announcements, allegations of death threats, and counter-allegations of death threats falsification.

And now, we have this:

Qantas grounds all flights
October 29, 2011 - 8:47PM

Qantas will lock out all its employees covered by the agreements that are currently in dispute.

And it has grounded its entire domestic and international fleets indefinitely.

"We are locking out until the unions withdraw their extreme claim and reach agreement with us," Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce told a press conference today.

"This course of action has been forced upon us ... by the actions of three unions," Mr Joyce said.

"The ball is in their court. They have to decide how badly they want to hurt Qantas."

Mr Joyce said his hand had been tipped by the impossible demands of the three unions.

"They are trashing our strategy and our brand," he said.

"They are deliberately destabilising the company and there is no end in sight."

If the industrial action continued, Qantas would have no choice but to shut down its business "part by part", the chief executive said.

He believed the lock out and grounding of the fleet was the only effective avenue at his disposal to bring about a solution to the dispute.

Mr Joyce said he was sorry the course of action had become necessary but the ball was now in the unions' court.

"They must decide just how badly they want to hurt Qantas, their members ... and the travelling public," he said.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/travel/tra...all-flights-20111029-1mpao.html#ixzz1cAq2pXu8

The response from the unions was predictable.

Qantas CEO has 'gone mad' say pilots
October 30, 2011 - 7:35PM

Qantas' decision to ground the entire Qantas fleet is "holding a knife to the nation's throat" and CEO Alan Joyce has "gone mad", the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) says.

AIPA vice president Richard Woodward said the move was "premeditated, unnecessary and grossly irresponsible".

"Alan Joyce is holding a knife to the nation's throat," Captain Woodward said.

"No-one predicted this, because no one thought Alan Joyce was completely mad.

"This is a stunning overreaction. It is straight-up blackmail.

"I knew he was trying to kill Qantas, but I didn't know he wanted to do it this quickly.

"This is a grave and serious situation and the board should move to sack Mr Joyce immediately. This is the saddest day of my 25 years with Qantas."

He said AIPA's industrial action has been limited to making brief, positive in-flight announcements and wearing red ties.

"In response to this, Mr Joyce has now locked out every pilot working for Qantas. This is nothing short of crazy behaviour," he said.

"Mr Joyce is stranding thousands of Qantas passengers all across the globe so he can engage in his mad game of one-upmanship. All so he can pursue his delusion that Qantas should be an Asian airline, instead of an Australian one.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/travel/tra...-say-pilots-20111029-1mpkp.html#ixzz1cAqdi5k5

I despair for this country sometimes.

So, CFCers, sensible decision? Y/N? I'm interested to hear from fellow Australians in particular. I haven't been keeping up to date on the news lately so maybe they can shed some new light on this issue.

More generally, is there a point where either a company or a union goes too far in an industrial dispute?

 

[Perfection]

Damnit, I only fly QANTAS.

 

[useless]

The CEO gave himself a 71% raise in his pay...

 

[Loppan Torkel]

It's good to see how this turns out from afar. It will happen again and certainly in countries with strong unions such as Sweden. The unions will continue to lose their power due to globalisation.

 

[useless]

It's good to see how this turns out from afar. It will happen again and certainly in countries with strong unions such as Sweden. The unions will continue to lose their power due to globalisation.

Do you believe that unions losing their power is a good thing?

 

[Loppan Torkel]

No, I don't. Not generally. Although in some nations they've become too influential.

 

[useless]

Oh! Was just curious sorry, wasn't sure what your stance on it was.

 

[Tee Kay]

The CEO gave himself a 71% raise in his pay...

Yes. The company also announced record profits, but at the same time it is losing market share, particularly for international flights.

It's good to see how this turns out from afar. It will happen again and certainly in countries with strong unions such as Sweden. The unions will continue to lose their power due to globalisation.

International Proleterian Solidarity FTW.

 

[Loppan Torkel]

International Proleterian Solidarity FTW.

In what way?

 

[Winner]

I never understand when people like pilots and air traffic controllers strike for better pay. These are probably the two most overpaid professions in the world (outside the insane world of finance). I'd tell the to STFU and if they quit, hire pilots from abroad. Problem solved.

 

[Cutlass]

I never understand when people like pilots and air traffic controllers strike for better pay. These are probably the two most overpaid professions in the world (outside the insane world of finance). I'd tell the to STFU and if they quit, hire pilots from abroad. Problem solved.

They certainly are not overpaid in the US. Why would they be elsewhere? In fact, the crushing hours and stress and very low pay is the reason behind the deteriorating quality of pilots now that the military doesn't train nearly as many of them.

 

[Camikaze]

Apparently 17 delegations that were at CHOGM are stranded.

My favourite line from the BBC article:

Aircraft currently in the air will complete their flights

@Winner- Airline CEO is a pretty high paying profession too.

Alan Joyce is...indefensible, really. Such a bonus as he received, when it appears QANTAS is in relatively dire straits. The whole last few years has been somewhat of a shambles, and the share price has dropped markedly over that time. Even if we assume that Joyce had done an absolutely awesome job, it doesn't take a genius to figure that it'd be prudent to forgo the raise given the current climate. Doing the opposite is simply RL trolling. The airline union seems pretty powerful, so I'm not sure how this is going to work out for QANTAS. It seems more of a PR stunt by QANTAS, but given the timing as it relates to Joyce's pay packet, I don't really think the ball's in their court.

 

[Winner]

Stress, yeah. Take off, turn on autopilot, chat with the stewardesses, drink coffee, land.

In my country, pilots are paid about as good as executives in large companies, they're literally filthy rich.

 

[Justo]

I haven't been following this all that closely but did know that it had been going on for quite some time. From what I do know (and that is very little) it seems that both sides are acting quite foolishly and need to be willing to compromise.

One thing I have heard is that this has already started to impact tourism in Australia which with the overall global economic problems and rising Australian dollar could be quite painful for the industry.

 

[classical_hero]

QANTAS is an Australian company and as such it should be run by Australians for Australians. I think that Joyce is being a big douchebag here.

 

[wolfigor]

It's good to see how this turns out from afar. It will happen again and certainly in countries with strong unions such as Sweden. The unions will continue to lose their power due to globalisation.

In Sweden the conditions were different.
SAS was in bad waters in any case and probably the crews would loose their jobs anyway: at least they try to get out as much as possible before the company goes down for good.
The problem for SAS was not how much they pay their people but more structural problems.

I never understand when people like pilots and air traffic controllers strike for better pay. These are probably the two most overpaid professions in the world (outside the insane world of finance). I'd tell the to STFU and if they quit, hire pilots from abroad. Problem solved.

In this case the main issue was that Quantas wanted to move abroad (to Asia) all the company killing off a huge quantity of jobs in Australia.
In the particular HQ, Technical centers, crews, aircraft facilities, etc. will move outside Australia, without any concern for Australian workers and Australian government (that in the past helped Quantas a lot for being the national airline).
It's not a strike to get more money, but a strike to don't loose jobs and keep Quantas Australian.

The executive management of Quantas is the one that took bad decisions in the past and now is happy to see Quantas die to rebuild it abroad, without any gratitude for the support that Australian government gave to the company in the past

 

[Synobun]

Isn't QANTAS an independent company though? Why should it be disallowed from outsourcing (not saying it's good, but just... why?)?

 

[classical_hero]

QANTAS will lose customers if they move offshore. It is a terrible decision to make. IT will cause the death of a company that is held highly by most Australians, or used to be.

 

[Synobun]

QANTAS will lose customers if they move offshore. It is a terrible decision to make. IT will cause the death of a company that is held highly by most Australians, or used to be.

Then why don't these three powerful unions come together and make their own airline that is to their liking if it's such a problem for them?

 

[aelf]

Then why don't these three powerful unions come together and make their own airline that is to their liking if it's such a problem for them?

Has anyone ever told you to form your own government when you expressed unhappiness about your government's decisions?