Qantas' entire fleet grounded

[wycbloods]

The dispute between TWU members and QANTAS is around essentially two things as i understand.

1. Money, no great surprise here but the TWU members have expressed they are prepared to settle for less than the 5% they have been asking for. I don't think this is the major sticking point.

2. Labour Hire Usage(Contractors). QANTAS want to be able to have up to 55% of the total workers required to do their work done by Labour Hire Workers. The TWU members are trying to limit this to 20%.

I don't see how QANTAS can justify that they need this 'flexibility' by having 55% of its work done by contractors.

They run an airline FFS! It is not as if they wake up each day and decide how many planes they want to put into the sky that day, these schedules are done months in advance. I understand they need to have some 'flexibility' to cover for sickleave, annual leave, long service leave and other problems such as weather etc but i would have thought 20% of a workforce that has been quoted to be around 4000 workers would be sufficient. To me their wish to have 55% of their work done by contractors is more about future proofing their workforce from the 'threat' of legal industrial action from its workers as well as simply reducing the labor cost to the business do to the inferior wages these workers employed through a labour hire agency would recieve.

The 55% mark is all about power and it seems Joyce and the rest of QANTAS management are hellbent on achieving this no matter what the cost is.

[Wedgie]

Fancy people who own the company and run the company actually wanting some power over the company. WTF are they thinking?
Next they'll want their company to run more efficiently and make more money, how dare they!
Do they think they live in a capitalist country and not a communist country or something?

[Psyber]

Alan Joyce's remuneration package is irrelevant. Qantas could save 5 or 6 million a year by firing him and hiring a Woolies check-out chick for $500 a week to do the job. She wouldn't have a clue. So if you want someone who could do the job you pay market rates FFS. Plumbers $250 and hour, dentists $1000 and hour, Lawyers $5000 and hour and international corporation CEO's entry level $5million PA. Baggage handlers are worth what? I don't know I've never done it.
Bottom line GO Qantas.

And Doctors $200 an hour gross - about half that after costs if you area solo practitioner.
You need to work 2 days a week to break even and 3 to make a living.
That's why I don't bother any more...

To put it in perspective though, neither my Plumber nor my Dentist charge as much as SP states, and the last law firm I used charged $450 an hour for Probate work in 2007.

[kickinit]

Qantas wants the contractors cos the full time employees don't want to work the overtime they need them to. And yes contractors do get payed a less base wage as they only get award rate. But on top of that they get a 25% loading for public holidays sick leave and holidays which actually ends up being more then why a full time gets. Also you have to add on top the money that the labour hire gets paid, so in the long run qantas end up paying more for contractors then full time.

[RustyCage]

no, the full time workers NEED the overtime

http://www.afr.com/p/business/companies/what_the_unions_want_1XPzVNsdfoO8ijqgol4e1O

[kickinit]

A family member is a baggage handler and can work what they want but a lot of them don't want to work it

[Sky Pilot]

Alan Joyce's remuneration package is irrelevant. Qantas could save 5 or 6 million a year by firing him and hiring a Woolies check-out chick for $500 a week to do the job. She wouldn't have a clue. So if you want someone who could do the job you pay market rates FFS. Plumbers $250 and hour, dentists $1000 and hour, Lawyers $5000 and hour and international corporation CEO's entry level $5million PA. Baggage handlers are worth what? I don't know I've never done it.
Bottom line GO Qantas.

And Doctors $200 an hour gross - about half that after costs if you area solo practitioner.
You need to work 2 days a week to break even and 3 to make a living.
That's why I don't bother any more...

To put it in perspective though, neither my Plumber nor my Dentist charge as much as SP states, and the last law firm I used charged $450 an hour for Probate work in 2007.

I was a bit tongue in cheek Psyber! But, Mrs SP recently had orthodontist work done on two of her chompers that were damaged after a serious horse-fall - $4500 later...
Mate of mine is a gyneacologist and he says he makes $350000 PA. He'd have to to be able to afford his luxury lifestyle and steady procession of Audi's

[Psyber]

I was a bit tongue in cheek Psyber! But, Mrs SP recently had orthodontist work done on two of her chompers that were damaged after a serious horse-fall - $4500 later...
Mate of mine is a gynaecologist and he says he makes $350000 PA. He'd have to to be able to afford his luxury lifestyle and steady procession of Audi's

Incomes in Medicine vary enormously.
The top Surgeons, particularly in Orthopaedics, are often around the $500K gross income or so.
Other non-procedural specialties are down around the $200K mark as was I when I last worked full time - well a 35 hour week.
("Full time" in Med usually means 50-60 hours a week, but my wife was ill and we had no one available to help her out.)

Operating costs vary a lot from field to field too and generally those who can work in groups do better.
I netted about 45% of my gross, but it did include paying off a second-hand Audi I got for $45K.

On the whole, Dentists do better than Doctors these days though again those who do procedures a lot make more than those who don't in Dentistry too.
In my view the lawyers have it made among the professions.

[Gozu]

"Just asking for it – the #QantasLuxury disaster":

Quick media management tip for corporate Australia: when you’re in the middle of ruthlessly crushing your workforce in order to offshore jobs (something mystifyingly less popular in the wider community than it is over lunch at the Australian Club), it’s probably not the best time to start a twitter promotion

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/purepoison/2 ... ng-for-it/

[Psyber]

I'm assuming QANTAS management concluded they would get a better deal out of the Arbitration process than could be negotiated directly with the unions.
So, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to act as they did to trigger that result.
(But they would need to deny it just as governments deny intending things then do them anyway.)

I wonder if the unions will get less than they expected to be able to pressure QANTAS into, and so be stroppy with the government in the end..

[fish]

Qantas grounding pre-planned, couriers say

DRIVERS were booked to deliver notices to thousands of Qantas staff days before the airline was grounded and staff were locked out, employees at a courier company say.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce says he made the decision to immediately ground the entire Qantas fleet on Saturday October 29 because he believed industrial action by three unions was slowly killing the airline.

Shareholders, customers and employees were caught by surprise, but two drivers from Direct Couriers have added fuel to suggestions by several senators that the move was pre-planned.

They have told ABC's Lateline program drivers were booked to deliver lockout notices to at least 6000 Qantas staff in the days leading up to the announcement.

"I was asked on Friday (October 28)," said the first courier, who remained anonymous.

"We were told they had a one-off job on Sunday and we would start at 6am.

"We weren't told we might have a job, we were told we had a job."

[Squawk]

I dont know why so many people are in a huff because Qantas grounded its fleet. It is the only course of industrial action that was available to Qantas in response to the slow death approach of the unions at $15m a day. Sure, customers and businesses were disrupted but equally, they were also disrupted by the employee's actions. All it boils down to is that, ideologically, lockouts are seen as being unfair play whereas employee actions are seen as part of the game, regardless of the harm it may do to the company and its operations. After all, Tiger Airways was virtually grounded overnight and no one really made a big deal about that.

[mickey]

Tiger was grounded for safety reasons, no???

Big difference between that and the grounding because the company couldn't get their own way...

[mighty_tiger_79]

its funny now that the union are crying about going to fair work australia, when in many other situations they quite happily take issues to FWA

but no matter the result watch how the union spin it as a win

[Barto]

I'm assuming all the anti union people aren't employees somewhere. Sure, there's some corrupt pr*cks running unions and they come out with some over the top crap at times, but be realistic: benefits like paid sick leave, paid holiday leave, OH&S standards and compensation for employees who were injured through no fault of their own weren't given to us by benevolent management out of the goodness of their hearts.

[dedja]

da comrade ...

[mighty_tiger_79]

im not completely anti-union but im against some of their practices. there is a need for unions as there are many corrupt companies out there who will screw the workers.

i think the union need to be more realistic with what they would like to achieve across all sectors

how many people have been to a delegates convention that is a day of evangelistic bullshit

[Brucetiki]

It gets better for Qantas

http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/qantas-or ... 6212690859

[Barto]

da comrade ...

Yeah youre right. PPE and safe working practices are for commies.

[dedja]

then why is union membership continually declining?