Qantas grounded

[draco664]

In response to ongoing industrial action, the Qantas board decided to ground every flight from last night.

Every plane.

So, I suppose it's no longer true to say that Qantas never crashed...

My parents are stuck in Darwin. They were supposed to fly back to Melbourne today, but have been caught up in this. Fortunately, the hotel they were staying in has allowed them to stay at the same discounted rate they got through a budget website, which I think is rather decent of them, considering no one knows how long they will be there.

In a supremely ironic twist, their flights to Darwin were free, due to strike action by Qantas workers disrupting their flight from LAX a couple of months ago. Which, also, was free, due to striking workers disrupting their flight from London last year.

So while my parents seem to think they're jinxed, I'm of the opinion that it's a move made by a board in response to intolerable strikes by workers who already have one of the best pay and condition packages in the airline world. (According to this article, the average Qantas engineer would make $170,000 a year if their demands were met)

These strikes have been an ongoing feature of Qantas travel for a long time now. In the past 18 months, two massive companies that I've worked for have changed their preferred airline from Qantas to Virgin. One was a 'big four' bank and the other one of the largest Utilities. That's a massive chunk of regular domestic business travellers gone simply due to striking causing instability.

A few weeks ago, one of the unions actually told passengers not to fly with Qantas until after Christmas. While it's nice to get a warning, when you're hell bent on fscking with a company, you can't be surprised when the company in turn fscks with you.

Their argument is fscking with everyone else, including my parents.

Fsckers.

[fireheart17]

From memory, another couple of points as well:

-The airline was originally meant to outsource 1000 jobs overseas since it's "cheaper".
-It has gotten so bad that the GOVERNMENT has had to step in. Originally the union and the CEO agreed to the meeting, then kept duking it out late into the night.
-The union workers agreed to stop the strikes for 3 weeks to allow for the dispute to be resolved with the labor board. It was the CEO's decision to do a complete lockout.
-People are going around pointing out how the CEO is crying poor and needing to outsource 1000 jobs overseas as a result, yet can then give himself a 70% pay increase.

[Nyoibo]

71% which he was given at the AGM, conviniently the announcement to fround the entire fleet wasn't made until after the AGM.

It's not only money that the service crew were striking about, it was also working conditions and having to cut corners in services to cut costs, the fact that the planes have been flying longer than they should without being serviced to save money also.

Also considering the source of the $170,000 a year is coming from, Qantas executive operations chief, I'd take it with a grain of salt, this is the same company that was saying that the unions were asking for 15% or more increase when the unions have said they've been asking for 10% over 3 years, when the cost of living increase is 3% a year that's not exactly unreasonable.

[Peppergirl]

Funny side note. A total of 3 of us in our call center (travel) have been deemed personally responsible for this atrocity today.

Did ya'll know you had a power biotch in your midst? * I* caused the disputes and grounded all the Qantas flights!

[Gravekeeper]

More accurately its "We haven't crashed a plane since 1951". Looks like they've had a number of close calls in recent years too, and have just been damn lucky. Most recent in 2010 when they had an engine explode on them mid flight. They've got a few planes in their fleet that are pretty damn old ( 20+ years ). This may not be the best time to be cutting corners to pad everyone's paycheques ( CEO included ) and outsourcing jobs.

You don't want to end up like Valujet, who outsourced their maintenance while flying a fleet of planes in the +20 age range. Till one of them burst into flames in mid flight and dropped out of the sky like a rock after everyone on board died from toxic smoke. Entirely because of shitty outsourced maintenance.

[fireheart17]

More accurately its "We haven't crashed a plane since 1951". Looks like they've had a number of close calls in recent years too, and have just been damn lucky. Most recent in 2010 when they had an engine explode on them mid flight. They've got a few planes in their fleet that are pretty damn old ( 20+ years ). This may not be the best time to be cutting corners to pad everyone's paycheques ( CEO included ) and outsourcing jobs.

The outsourcing was before the paycheque issue. THey were planning on outsourcing the maintenance crews well before the union demanded anything.

It's not just about pay. It's also about conditions as well.

QANTAS also owns another airline brand known as Jetstar, which is the "El Cheapo" version of QANTAS. (they also do not fly a lot of international lines)

The amount of comments I have seen on the articles I've been following fall into a few categories:

-This wouldn't have happened if <Liberal Party> were in power (usually they name a particular member of the Liberal Party)!
-The unions are running the economy into the ground!
-They're lucky to have jobs (the Qantas workers that is)
-Alan Joyce is evil, it's corporate greed! (or along those lines)
-The airline has the right to do this to stay competitive!
-The airline will shut down if the employees get their way!
-The airline will shut down if the CEO gets his way....

And then you have those general idiots who feel that Alan Joyce is the antichrist and that the whole reason behind his debacle is to allow the "Americans" to take over.
>.>

Funnily enough, everytime a comment in one of those above categories is called out by someone, the response to the original comment doesn't get picked up on after that.

[Gravekeeper]

The outsourcing was before the paycheque issue. THey were planning on outsourcing the maintenance crews well before the union demanded anything.

Outsourcing To A Cheaper Company + Old Planes = Risking that record they're so proud of.

QANTAS also owns another airline brand known as Jetstar.

An airline that a few years ago had an incident of a fire breaking out on board a plane. ;p

I don't really have an opinion one way or another on the union vs CEO. Just saying that skimping on cheaper maintenace is never a good idea. Especially with older planes.

[fireheart17]

I thought I might just bring this up as well just on how the bargaining system works regarding unions in Australia, just for a bit of awareness.

Our equivelent of the Labor Board doesn't just ensure that state and federal workplace laws are being met. It also acts as a mediator between the company and the union to ensure that the agreements on either side aren't entirely unsatisfactory. In order for any union agreement to be made effective, Fair Work Australia (the Labor Board) has to view the agreement and ensure that it passes the Better Off Overall Test, meaning that the proposed conditions can't make employees any worse off.

[draco664]

Funny side note. A total of 3 of us in our call center (travel) have been deemed personally responsible for this atrocity today.

Did ya'll know you had a power biotch in your midst? * I* caused the disputes and grounded all the Qantas flights!

You rock! I wish I had the power to ground an airline.

[fireheart17]

So Qantas are starting to fly again. Fair Work Australia intervened within the industrial action, cancelling it, as the lock-out was ruining the economy. Both parties have a total of 42 days to resolve their action: if nothing gets done by the first half, then they can apply to extend it.

Basically Alan Joyce has four options:

-Cave.
-Negotiate.
-Do nothing.
-Lockout all workers AGAIN and fire them.

[Nyoibo]

As far as I know the 4th option isn't open to him, I think we still have enough laws that make that illegal, the union heads have said that the FWA ruling will basically mean in 3 weeks when their EBA/Workplace agreement is up that it'll be forced arbitration.