An evil genius, maybe.
A Wild Union Appears! QANTAS Uses Selfdestruct!
- Thread starter Tee Kay
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An evil genius, maybe.
Besides 80k doesn't sound like that much to me, considering that the cost of living in Oz are rather high, IIRC. Especially around the population centers where pilots are most likely to live...
I earn more than that and I don't work shifts, am not subject to constant jet-lag, and most certainly I don't have dozens of lives depending on me handling potential emergencies correctly.
Right, so I take it that when you said "a lot of that is disinformation" about the Slashdot post I quoted, you didn't mean "QF international is losing money", as it clearly said "the domestic arm is doing fine" and "[t]heir successful domestic arm has been subsidising it".
What else in that post was misinformation? You only quoted "Qantas failed serve those routes, except via London, and its competitors filled the gap", which doesn't explain how Qantas failed, or how that made the Slashdot post wrong.
It's nonsense to quote individual facets of a business as making losses or profits. It's an integrated company, and it's pretty easy to apportion costs and revenue any way you want to make the accounts say what you want. And actually "Qantas International" isn't even a distinct operating segment in their annual financial report, it's all just Qantas, which should make any statements about such a thing doubly dubious.
The reason it's disinformation is that the implication is that Qantas is being outcompeted and driven out of those routes, as opposed to consciously withdrawing as part of a business strategy. It's disinformation to claim that a business which runs at a profit (and enough profit to build up 3.5 billion dollars in cash to hand) is running at a loss. It's also bollocks to say "that can only continue for so long" when a lot of the impacts on Qantas in the recent financial year have been one-off things - the high dollar, the various disasters (Fukushima, the Chilean volcano, the Rolls Royce engine fiasco, as well as smaller events like Chritchurch, and the Queensland floods). They cite their total losses from such unfavourable things as: "total financial impact of weather events and natural disasters on the Qantas segment was $136 million."
At any rate, instead of withdrawing from serving long-haul international tourism, where as Camikaze correctly notes people do pay a premium for reliable, comfortable and safe services, they could have invested in more fuel-efficient long-haul appropriate craft (instead they are cutting back on the A380s), reducing the pressures of fuel costs (the biggest and most volatile cost pressure they face), and increased their share of the long-haul market, instead they've decided to turn into a slightly dodgy budget regional operator based at Changi. That's their decision, and a risky one given that they trade on reputation, reliability and excellence. Doubly risky given the government's ability to stop them in their tracks in these plans (they have their own Act of parliament!), but not the result of any external pressures.
In short, painting a self-inflicted situation as externally driven is disinformation.
The reason it's disinformation is that the implication is that Qantas is being outcompeted and driven out of those routes, as opposed to consciously withdrawing as part of a business strategy. It's disinformation to claim that a business which runs at a profit (and enough profit to build up 3.5 billion dollars in cash to hand) is running at a loss. It's also bollocks to say "that can only continue for so long" when a lot of the impacts on Qantas in the recent financial year have been one-off things - the high dollar, the various disasters (Fukushima, the Chilean volcano, the Rolls Royce engine fiasco, as well as smaller events like Chritchurch, and the Queensland floods). They cite their total losses from such unfavourable things as: "total financial impact of weather events and natural disasters on the Qantas segment was $136 million."
At any rate, instead of withdrawing from serving long-haul international tourism, where as Camikaze correctly notes people do pay a premium for reliable, comfortable and safe services, they could have invested in more fuel-efficient long-haul appropriate craft (instead they are cutting back on the A380s), reducing the pressures of fuel costs (the biggest and most volatile cost pressure they face), and increased their share of the long-haul market, instead they've decided to turn into a slightly dodgy budget regional operator based at Changi. That's their decision, and a risky one given that they trade on reputation, reliability and excellence. Doubly risky given the government's ability to stop them in their tracks in these plans (they have their own Act of parliament!), but not the result of any external pressures.
In short, painting a self-inflicted situation as externally driven is disinformation.
Regardless of whether you keep a separate department or even an accounting book for the international business, if it is losing money, why wouldn't it be a good idea to reform or get rid of that part of business? Why do you have to keep it running as usual, simply because other parts of the business are turning a profit? Wouldn't "consciously withdrawing" be a smart move?
And then you say "painting a self-inflicted situation as externally driven is disinformation", when you gave no more than a list of external one-off things?
And then you say "painting a self-inflicted situation as externally driven is disinformation", when you gave no more than a list of external one-off things?
The withdrawal from long-haul routes and the entry of competitors into new emerging long-haul routes is a self-inflicted situation caused by conscious management decisions to, apparently, focus on transforming into a dodgy regional budget carrier. And would seem to be playing away from their strengths (excellence and reliability). I mean, Qantas seriously flies to Europe mostly via London. Still. That's dumb and outdated, it's no wonder they're losing market share.
It's a bit rich to blame the unions for their own management decisions.
It's a bit rich to blame the unions for their own management decisions.
I thought moving to budget carrier was a response of international flights losing money, not the reason? I think they are blaming the unions not for causing the losses, but for opposing that response. The list of union demands you posted offers very little help to international flights. Basically all of it was asking for more money. And this BBC commentary is implying the unions are the side that refused to talk.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Poor unions, they "ask for more money" and get criticized for it. In the meanwhile the CEO gives himself more money even while he whines that the company is going through some crisis! And, oh, let's see, conspires to break the rules (laws) under which the company was privatized in the first place.
Why the hell would a union what to talk to such a dick? He should be defenestrated from the top of a control tower. Frankly, the workers should grow some balls and mass resign. Let the dick take the empty shell of a company elsewhere. Things are coming to a point where class war is actually necessary to get rid of the psychopaths. Though, I'm afraid, it'll take a couple more years to see that finally happening, and it won't start in Australia.
Most of the dispute is about keeping Qantas work for Qantas staff, instead of dodgy outsourced shell entities.
And yeah, BBC is wrong. Enterprise agreement negotiations have been going on for a while now, the unions haven't been "refising to talk", talking is all they've been doing. The phrase "failed to get the main unions at Qantas to engage in meaningful talks" is silly, the talks have basically been the unions wanting to discuss these issues (all allowable matters of discussion under the Fair Work Act) and Qantas going "it's impossble!" because of their clear plans to use outsourcing and shell entitites to move work away from the mainline carrier governed by the Parliamentary act.
It was Qantas which deliberately escalated things to crisis point to force government intervention on national interest grounds, thus ending the requirement to talk and bargain.
It's also quite funny that the article says "Its wholly owned subsidiary Jetstar, based in Vietnam and Singapore, is the model for future growth." Firstly, even while industrial action was going on, Jetstar managed to have more cancelled flights than Qantas. But secondly, the Vietnamese government is about to effectively turn the Vietnam arm of Jetstar (Jetstar Pacific) into a subsidiary of Vietnamese Airlines over which Qantas will lose all control. Staking your future on doing business in countries where states are not afraid to heavily intervene in the economy for their own natural interest is a risky strategy. Sure the Singaporeans aren't likely to nationalise the planned Changi facility, but what else might they demand out of Qantas?
The article also neglects to mention the looming senate inquiry and possible change to the Qantas Sale Act which may completely scuttle the plan to outsource by stealth through subsidiary entities. More risk to the strategy.
I love the news.com.au article where all the blame is put on th PM and the Labor Government. I mean really why are people so biased ?
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/julia-gillards-qantas-move-didnt-follow-the-script/story-e6frfq80-1226182021708
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/julia-gillards-qantas-move-didnt-follow-the-script/story-e6frfq80-1226182021708
Hildebrand is an idiot with an agenda. Not worth reading. His reporting yesterday was completely repudiated by both Joyce and the government. He claimed "QANTAS CEO Alan Joyce would have abandoned his decision to ground the airline had Prime Minister Julia Gillard returned his call and promised to intervene directly in the union standoff." They both said it was a complete lie.
Today he's clearly desperately trying to salvage his attack like the lulsome hack that he is.
For more deranged fun from the bombastic bunkers of the News Limited press:
...and then if you google your way through the paywall she cites some of the horrors of the current union agreements:
...and ends with this rather delightful drivel:
Just for fun imagine the sort of frothing rage you'd get if someone, say, Green-aligned had written something this unhinged, broadbrushed and violent about big business or a CEO (or the police or bankers!). It's an interesting counterpoint to the wailing and gnashing of teeth you get from some quarters over harsh words from some union officials.
Today he's clearly desperately trying to salvage his attack like the lulsome hack that he is.
For more deranged fun from the bombastic bunkers of the News Limited press:
...and then if you google your way through the paywall she cites some of the horrors of the current union agreements:
...and ends with this rather delightful drivel:
Just for fun imagine the sort of frothing rage you'd get if someone, say, Green-aligned had written something this unhinged, broadbrushed and violent about big business or a CEO (or the police or bankers!). It's an interesting counterpoint to the wailing and gnashing of teeth you get from some quarters over harsh words from some union officials.
innonimatu
the resident Cassandra
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Let them write it. Let them fuel public anger against that derangement, against the servile media. Such lousy propagandists can only harm their own paymasters. 
katipunero
Prince
classical_hero
In whom I trust
It is amazing how bad management can trash such an important brand.
Looking at the list of unions' demands I don't see how they are serious about helping Qantas international business. I assume that is what the BBC guy meant by "meaningful talks". And no, talking isn't all the unions have been doing. They have also been striking.
It sounds like this is what happened: Qantas management saw that the international flights are losing money. They tried to reform that part of the business by outsourcing. Which would lead to union job losses. So unions protested, using the usual code words such as safety concerns to mean "don't fire any of us". Management tried to negotiate, unions won't give up an inch. Management lost it and grounded planes. Except for that drama at the end it's fairly mundane stuff.
innonimatu
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If the unions had done the equivalent of that the management did (a walk-out and lock-down of the company) you'd be spitting flame about them. when the management does it, it's "mundane stuff". We get it.
No, I said "[e]xcept for that drama at the end". I don't think the management was being nice.
It's simply not true that the unions were striking or that bargaining was anywhere near a crisis point. The pilots' protected industrial action consisted of making announcements over the PA and wearing ties with slogans. The baggage handlers' protected industrial action was a couple of 1 hour stop work meetings. The engineers did plan strike action, but delayed it so there could be more talks. In the end, Qantas had less flights cancelled in the protected industrial action period than the unaffected Jetstar did.
You're also missing the part where operational matters are perfectly legal and legitimate allowable matters for discussion and demands in the enterprise bargaining process. Unions have every right to be making claims in those areas that are in their members' interests under the Fair Work Act, just as Qantas has every right to bargain on those grounds.
The idea that unions and workers should get no say in operational decisions is slightly ridiculous, not supported by the law of the land, and Qantas' attitude speaks to a very dysfunctional relationship with its staff. Furthermore, all three unions indicated their pay demands were negotiable and the pilots even said they'd agree to work longer hours at the same rates - the obvious thing to do (and what I hope Fair Work Australia decides when it goes to arbitrate) would be to exchange reduced pay demands for concessions on the unions' operational requests.
Unions are not, by definition, recalcitrant, corrupt and immovable, no matter what ridiculous fairy tales union-busting politicians, right wing columnists and incompetent HR managers tell themselves. This is particularly the case in a country like Australia where industrial action and enterprise bargaining agreements get voted on via a secret ballot of members.
So yeah, there was no crisis, just the normal back and forth of the enterprise bargaining process. If the unions had been as recalcitrant and damaging as Qantas are claiming, Qantas themselves could have petititioned Fair Work Australia to intervene and terminate bargaining and end negotiations, and if such damage was occuring, the application would have been granted.
But, frustratingly for a Qantas bent on union-busting, the unions were not causing disruptions or threatening the national interest. So instead, Qantas decided to create a crisis and threaten the national interest themselves, grounding an entire major airline and stranding a hundred thousand people, in order to cause the bargaining process to end. It was a cynical, calculated, premeditated decision, not a decision responding to a crisis or to strike action.
Not to mention an inability to effectively manage its workplace relations without bringing in the government to solve its problems. If Qantas is crap at bargaining effectively that's hardly the unions' fault.
edit: There's also the small matter that the use of shell companies to outsource by stealth, hiving off assets from the mainline carrier to other entities, is a dodgy as hell attempt at getting around the spirit of the Qantas Sale Act. We'll see how the Senate Inquiry responds to that, I guess.
I don't disagree with that. I said "it's fairly mundane stuff", right? Not "the unions have lost their bloody minds". Whether the unions were belligerent enough to warrant grounding all planes I don't know. My instinct says no. But the unions have not offered cooperation or concession with management's plan to reform. I think that bit is clear.
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