Future of Qantas in jeopardy: Joyce (Merged)
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It is still early in this dispute. One of the reasons '89 went so badly was the lack of a fall-back position.
I believe AIPA would have that as a fall-back position that could be easily implemented if required, and it would leave QF nowhere to go.
Done too early however, it would leave AIPA also with nowhere to go. I believe it is far too early in this dispute however to start reducing claims. AIPA would also be waiting to see the result of the ballot from its own members.
I believe AIPA would have that as a fall-back position that could be easily implemented if required, and it would leave QF nowhere to go.
Done too early however, it would leave AIPA also with nowhere to go. I believe it is far too early in this dispute however to start reducing claims. AIPA would also be waiting to see the result of the ballot from its own members.
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On the subject of "public perception", the ninemsn homepage currently has a poll on "do Qantas Pilots earn too much?"...
ninemsn - Hotmail, Messenger, News, Sport, Celebrity, Finance, Travel, Cars, Movies, Shopping
The "NO" vote is ahead!
ninemsn - Hotmail, Messenger, News, Sport, Celebrity, Finance, Travel, Cars, Movies, Shopping
The "NO" vote is ahead!
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Joe Hildebrand
That article linked to in The Australian - it's by 'Joe Hildebrand'.
That name seems to have been at the top of several very anti-pilot, pro-management articles in a number of Murdoch papers lately (Aus, Tele, Herald Sun).
Conspiracy theories... Murdoch's been down this route before... could he be engineering something again?
Should this Hildebrand character perhaps be engaged directly and have it explained to him where he is being taken for a complete patsy by management?
In this article, 'Joe' claims that
That name seems to have been at the top of several very anti-pilot, pro-management articles in a number of Murdoch papers lately (Aus, Tele, Herald Sun).
Conspiracy theories... Murdoch's been down this route before... could he be engineering something again?
Should this Hildebrand character perhaps be engaged directly and have it explained to him where he is being taken for a complete patsy by management?
In this article, 'Joe' claims that
An average 747 pilot earns $350,000 a year and the top pilots earn up to $500,000.
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Qantas prepares offensive on Australian workforce
By Terry Cook and James Cogan
27 May 2011
Qantas Group, which operates Qantas and the low-cost carrier Jetstar, appears intent on provoking a confrontation with its workforce in order to implement an agenda of expanding its Asian-based subsidiaries and cutting costs in its Australian operations.
Qantas has rejected out-of-hand the request by the three trade unions covering its Australian pilots, engineers and ground crew for a “job security” clause in new agreements. The clause would require that the company pay any crew on a Qantas-badged flight, or workers undertaking Qantas work on the ground, the same wages and entitlements specified in the agreement. The stipulation would not only apply to Australian contractors, but the pilots and cabin crews of overseas subsidiaries that operate Qantas services.
In one of the most belligerent responses, Qantas chief pilot Peter Wilson declared on May 18 that the job security claim was “damaging to the interests of Qantas and a threat to the real, long-term job security of 35,000 employees in the Qantas Group”. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7.30 Report” last night: “There are certain demands I cannot concede to because it will endanger the survival of the company into the long run. It is at that stage. Our international business is losing money. Our international business, if these demands are met, will go backwards even further.”
Qantas is preparing what one commentator described as a “seismic shift” in its global strategy. It is reportedly looking to establish a new subsidiary operating out of Singapore that would provide the same premium services as Qantas itself. The company refused to deny the report. Qantas spokesperson Olivia Wirth told the Australian “an international review” was underway and “everything is on the table.”
Qantas already has a joint venture, low-cost subsidiary in Singapore, Jetstar Asia. The carrier competes for cheap flight business in the Asia market, particularly to China, and provides flights to and from Australia via Singapore using lower cost Singapore-based pilots and crew. Qantas also has a wholly-owned New Zealand-based subsidiary, Jetconnect, whose staff are paid New Zealand wages and conditions to operate budget Qantas flights in and out of Australia. Jetstar Pacific, another joint venture, operates out of Vietnam.
The move to establish a premium carrier in Asia represents a qualitative step in the company’s gradual transfer of its core operations out of Australia. Amid discussion that a number of major world airlines will inevitably go the wall due to intense cost and competitive pressures, the aim of Qantas’s corporate strategy was reported last month to be “ending its geographical isolation” in Australia. It plans to survive by gaining a significant share of the expanding number of full-service flights throughout the Asian region, which cater for a growing upper-middle class and corporate elite.
Qantas’s move to Asia will be accelerated by the announcement this week that one of its major rivals, Singapore Airlines, is moving to establish a low-cost subsidiary that will directly compete for Jetstar Asia’s business.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts that by 2014 there will be 800 million extra passengers globally, of whom 360 million will be flying Asia-Pacific routes. Other sources forecast that outbound traffic from China alone is set to rise by about 16 percent a year until 2020. Singapore, which has short-haul connections to China, Japan, India and throughout the region, currently has 11 million arrivals per year and expects these to increase to 17 million in 2015.
A full service subsidiary in Singapore—possibly named Qantas Asia—would render redundant many aspects of Qantas’s Australian-based operations. It could take over existing routes between the island and Europe, with crews employed on lower Singapore conditions. The new airline could use Singapore crews to fly full services to Australia, and even lower-paid Thai crews on other Asian routes. Maintenance could be transferred to Asian sites.
Cost-cutting is also in store for the Australian operations, as Qantas and Jetstar face increasingly aggressive competition. Asian and Middle Eastern-based carriers that operate with lower costs are expanding their Australian customer base by offering attractive rates and services. Qantas’s share of international Australian passengers plummeted from 35 percent in 2003 to less than 20 percent in 2010. Even adding Jetstar and Jetstar Asia international flights, the Group’s market share was just 26.8 percent, down from 28.2 percent in 2009.
Virgin Airlines, the other major Australian-based carrier, has launched a challenge to Qantas’s dominance in the domestic business class trade. Virgin’s international head Richard Branson told the Business Spectator website this month that Qantas had been able to utilise $1.5 billion of income from business class passengers “to subsidise Jetstar and their economy class.” He added, “[W]e would like to take $300-$400 million of that away from them.”
Qantas has reportedly enlisted the services of consultancy firm Bain, which drew up the restructuring plans that were imposed at a number of American-based airlines, at the expense of wages, conditions and hundreds of jobs.
Thousands of Qantas workers—from pilots to baggage handlers—sense that an offensive is looming. Previous union agreements have enabled the Qantas Group to establish an international workforce employed on vastly divergent wages and conditions and transfer more and more of its services overseas. In 2008, 1,750 Australian Qantas staff were made redundant.
While the unions have insisted they will not accept an agreement that does not include job security, their entire record proves otherwise. From the 1989 pilots’ strike, to the bankruptcy of Ansett Airlines 10 years ago, to the acceptance of substandard conditions for Virgin and Jetstar crews, to the 2008 redundancies, the unions have collaborated with Australian airlines to cut costs and jobs.
At every point, the primary concern of the unions has been to protect the industry’s “international competitiveness.” In exchange, the unions have retained coverage of the remaining workforce and involvement in the multi-million dollar funds holding workers’ superannuation retirement benefits.
There is little doubt that the unions are working behind the scenes to convince Qantas to moderate its global reorientation by offering to slash their own members’ conditions. In mid-May, pilots union national president Barry Jackson stated: “If chief executive Alan Joyce and his executives sit down with pilots and other workers, there are any number of ways to achieve productivity gains without scrapping Qantas’s 90-year history and shifting overseas.”
Any concessions the unions give Qantas will only feed into setting lower benchmarks across the entire airline industry. Workers are being pitted against one another in a never-ending downward spiralling of conditions.
Qantas workers face decisive questions. While the company prepares its plans, the unions have diverted them into token threats of the limited industrial action that is permitted under the Labor government’s Fair Work Australia (FWA) industrial laws.
The union covering 1,700 Qantas pilots applied yesterday to the FWA tribunal to allow a ballot of its members for industrial action, a process that will take up to four weeks. The planned action will consist of two days of stopwork meetings and a “work-to-rule” campaign.
Last week, the engineers union, whose members had already voted for industrial action, called off a one-hour stoppage on the grounds that urgent maintenance had to be done to aircraft. It then suspended any threat of industrial action for four weeks.
The Transport Workers Union, which covers ground staff, is still in negotiations. The company has already made clear that it will use management to break any minimal industrial action by baggage handlers and ticketing staff.
The Gillard government stands ready to intervene if Qantas workers seek to break out of the straight-jacket imposed on them by the unions. Labor has repeatedly backed punitive action to break so-called “illegal” strikes, sanctioning police operations against picket lines and imposing massive fines.
A strike by Qantas workers would be viewed by the Labor government as a fundamental challenge to its guarantee to the financial markets that it will prevent any “blow-out” in wages and conditions. A stand by Qantas workers could become a rallying point for workers in all the other industries who face drastic restructuring.
Qantas pilots, engineers and ground staff can only defend their jobs and conditions with a global strategy. The first step must be the development of direct links between Qantas Group workers internationally through the establishment of rank-and-file committees, independent of the trade union apparatuses. A common resistance to the company’s agenda must be formulated across national borders.
This would immediately become a political struggle against the Gillard government. Backed by the entire political establishment, Labor would do everything to suppress any threat to the interests of the corporate elite, including using the anti-democratic provisions of Fair Work Australia that enable it to illegalise industrial action on the grounds it is causing “significant economic damage”. That is why workers must turn to a socialist perspective and the fight for a workers’ government that will expropriate the banks and basic industries, including the airlines, place them under the democratic control of the working class and organise society to provide for social need, not private profit.
27 May 2011
Qantas Group, which operates Qantas and the low-cost carrier Jetstar, appears intent on provoking a confrontation with its workforce in order to implement an agenda of expanding its Asian-based subsidiaries and cutting costs in its Australian operations.
Qantas has rejected out-of-hand the request by the three trade unions covering its Australian pilots, engineers and ground crew for a “job security” clause in new agreements. The clause would require that the company pay any crew on a Qantas-badged flight, or workers undertaking Qantas work on the ground, the same wages and entitlements specified in the agreement. The stipulation would not only apply to Australian contractors, but the pilots and cabin crews of overseas subsidiaries that operate Qantas services.
In one of the most belligerent responses, Qantas chief pilot Peter Wilson declared on May 18 that the job security claim was “damaging to the interests of Qantas and a threat to the real, long-term job security of 35,000 employees in the Qantas Group”. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7.30 Report” last night: “There are certain demands I cannot concede to because it will endanger the survival of the company into the long run. It is at that stage. Our international business is losing money. Our international business, if these demands are met, will go backwards even further.”
Qantas is preparing what one commentator described as a “seismic shift” in its global strategy. It is reportedly looking to establish a new subsidiary operating out of Singapore that would provide the same premium services as Qantas itself. The company refused to deny the report. Qantas spokesperson Olivia Wirth told the Australian “an international review” was underway and “everything is on the table.”
Qantas already has a joint venture, low-cost subsidiary in Singapore, Jetstar Asia. The carrier competes for cheap flight business in the Asia market, particularly to China, and provides flights to and from Australia via Singapore using lower cost Singapore-based pilots and crew. Qantas also has a wholly-owned New Zealand-based subsidiary, Jetconnect, whose staff are paid New Zealand wages and conditions to operate budget Qantas flights in and out of Australia. Jetstar Pacific, another joint venture, operates out of Vietnam.
The move to establish a premium carrier in Asia represents a qualitative step in the company’s gradual transfer of its core operations out of Australia. Amid discussion that a number of major world airlines will inevitably go the wall due to intense cost and competitive pressures, the aim of Qantas’s corporate strategy was reported last month to be “ending its geographical isolation” in Australia. It plans to survive by gaining a significant share of the expanding number of full-service flights throughout the Asian region, which cater for a growing upper-middle class and corporate elite.
Qantas’s move to Asia will be accelerated by the announcement this week that one of its major rivals, Singapore Airlines, is moving to establish a low-cost subsidiary that will directly compete for Jetstar Asia’s business.
The International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts that by 2014 there will be 800 million extra passengers globally, of whom 360 million will be flying Asia-Pacific routes. Other sources forecast that outbound traffic from China alone is set to rise by about 16 percent a year until 2020. Singapore, which has short-haul connections to China, Japan, India and throughout the region, currently has 11 million arrivals per year and expects these to increase to 17 million in 2015.
A full service subsidiary in Singapore—possibly named Qantas Asia—would render redundant many aspects of Qantas’s Australian-based operations. It could take over existing routes between the island and Europe, with crews employed on lower Singapore conditions. The new airline could use Singapore crews to fly full services to Australia, and even lower-paid Thai crews on other Asian routes. Maintenance could be transferred to Asian sites.
Cost-cutting is also in store for the Australian operations, as Qantas and Jetstar face increasingly aggressive competition. Asian and Middle Eastern-based carriers that operate with lower costs are expanding their Australian customer base by offering attractive rates and services. Qantas’s share of international Australian passengers plummeted from 35 percent in 2003 to less than 20 percent in 2010. Even adding Jetstar and Jetstar Asia international flights, the Group’s market share was just 26.8 percent, down from 28.2 percent in 2009.
Virgin Airlines, the other major Australian-based carrier, has launched a challenge to Qantas’s dominance in the domestic business class trade. Virgin’s international head Richard Branson told the Business Spectator website this month that Qantas had been able to utilise $1.5 billion of income from business class passengers “to subsidise Jetstar and their economy class.” He added, “[W]e would like to take $300-$400 million of that away from them.”
Qantas has reportedly enlisted the services of consultancy firm Bain, which drew up the restructuring plans that were imposed at a number of American-based airlines, at the expense of wages, conditions and hundreds of jobs.
Thousands of Qantas workers—from pilots to baggage handlers—sense that an offensive is looming. Previous union agreements have enabled the Qantas Group to establish an international workforce employed on vastly divergent wages and conditions and transfer more and more of its services overseas. In 2008, 1,750 Australian Qantas staff were made redundant.
While the unions have insisted they will not accept an agreement that does not include job security, their entire record proves otherwise. From the 1989 pilots’ strike, to the bankruptcy of Ansett Airlines 10 years ago, to the acceptance of substandard conditions for Virgin and Jetstar crews, to the 2008 redundancies, the unions have collaborated with Australian airlines to cut costs and jobs.
At every point, the primary concern of the unions has been to protect the industry’s “international competitiveness.” In exchange, the unions have retained coverage of the remaining workforce and involvement in the multi-million dollar funds holding workers’ superannuation retirement benefits.
There is little doubt that the unions are working behind the scenes to convince Qantas to moderate its global reorientation by offering to slash their own members’ conditions. In mid-May, pilots union national president Barry Jackson stated: “If chief executive Alan Joyce and his executives sit down with pilots and other workers, there are any number of ways to achieve productivity gains without scrapping Qantas’s 90-year history and shifting overseas.”
Any concessions the unions give Qantas will only feed into setting lower benchmarks across the entire airline industry. Workers are being pitted against one another in a never-ending downward spiralling of conditions.
Qantas workers face decisive questions. While the company prepares its plans, the unions have diverted them into token threats of the limited industrial action that is permitted under the Labor government’s Fair Work Australia (FWA) industrial laws.
The union covering 1,700 Qantas pilots applied yesterday to the FWA tribunal to allow a ballot of its members for industrial action, a process that will take up to four weeks. The planned action will consist of two days of stopwork meetings and a “work-to-rule” campaign.
Last week, the engineers union, whose members had already voted for industrial action, called off a one-hour stoppage on the grounds that urgent maintenance had to be done to aircraft. It then suspended any threat of industrial action for four weeks.
The Transport Workers Union, which covers ground staff, is still in negotiations. The company has already made clear that it will use management to break any minimal industrial action by baggage handlers and ticketing staff.
The Gillard government stands ready to intervene if Qantas workers seek to break out of the straight-jacket imposed on them by the unions. Labor has repeatedly backed punitive action to break so-called “illegal” strikes, sanctioning police operations against picket lines and imposing massive fines.
A strike by Qantas workers would be viewed by the Labor government as a fundamental challenge to its guarantee to the financial markets that it will prevent any “blow-out” in wages and conditions. A stand by Qantas workers could become a rallying point for workers in all the other industries who face drastic restructuring.
Qantas pilots, engineers and ground staff can only defend their jobs and conditions with a global strategy. The first step must be the development of direct links between Qantas Group workers internationally through the establishment of rank-and-file committees, independent of the trade union apparatuses. A common resistance to the company’s agenda must be formulated across national borders.
This would immediately become a political struggle against the Gillard government. Backed by the entire political establishment, Labor would do everything to suppress any threat to the interests of the corporate elite, including using the anti-democratic provisions of Fair Work Australia that enable it to illegalise industrial action on the grounds it is causing “significant economic damage”. That is why workers must turn to a socialist perspective and the fight for a workers’ government that will expropriate the banks and basic industries, including the airlines, place them under the democratic control of the working class and organise society to provide for social need, not private profit.
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This article by Terry Cook must have come from the Green Left Weekly or Socialist Worker . Yes the same Mr Cook , I recall was a Union Deleagte at the SRA workshops at Chullora , in Sydney . Led a glorius campaign of the workers that resulted in them all losing their jobs and the closure and privatisation of the functions carried out in those workshops . Listen to these people at your peril , they will fight your dispute to the last drop of your blood !
Stop your whinging and get on with the job of steering the ship.
Everyone is tired of seeing you in the media crying foul over everything be it
fuel,competition,staff, unions yadda yadda !!!
Why is he so hell bent on locking horns with his own staff !!
Just get on with it Alan or hand over the ship to someone else and fast. !!
Iceberg at 12 O'clock !!
Everyone is tired of seeing you in the media crying foul over everything be it
fuel,competition,staff, unions yadda yadda !!!
Why is he so hell bent on locking horns with his own staff !!
Just get on with it Alan or hand over the ship to someone else and fast. !!
Iceberg at 12 O'clock !!
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “7.30 Report” last night: “There are certain demands I cannot concede to because it will endanger the survival of the company into the long run. It is at that stage. Our international business is losing money. Our international business, if these demands are met, will go backwards even further.”
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The quintessenial point of the article posted by AGG is
Which, I might add, means employees will need to accommodate more salary at risk.
'Qantas pilots, engineers and ground staff can only defend their jobs and conditions with a global strategy.
Fed Sec
I think you will find outing people here is frowned upon. It is your choice to reveal your identity, not your choice to reveal others.
I would hate to see you not able to make your normally interesting contributions here.
I think you will find outing people here is frowned upon. It is your choice to reveal your identity, not your choice to reveal others.
I would hate to see you not able to make your normally interesting contributions here.
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Heres another courtesy of Solidarity
Solidarity Online
Its sad to see the Australian National Carrier is going down the tube like this. Establishing subsideries and other countries will only kill the only thing it has going for it, Its Australian. If management had reinvested and reinvigorated the product they wouldn't have a declining market-share. Cost is an important part of the problem, but there is no point whining and moaning about Asian carriers with lower cost bases and more advantageous locations, cheap fuel and all that others staff that they come up with it. An Asian entity doing most of the international flying will only alienate the Australian public and the employees.
I think a new name might be appropriate for the Rat, FLAUNTUS.
Solidarity Online
Fight over job security brewing at Qantas
May, 2011
Three key unions at Qantas are pressing demands for job security and above-inflation pay rises.
Pilots, aircraft engineers and ground staff, like baggage handlers, catering staff, ramp handlers and refuellers, are all negotiating new enterprise agreements. They are covered by three unions—the Australian and International Pilots Association, Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association and the Transport Workers Union (TWU).
A war of words erupted between Qantas and the unions in March and April.
The 1500 member engineers union has already balloted it members, who responded with a clear majority for industrial action. However, the leadership rushed to say it would not strike over Easter.
Job security is a major issue for the unions. For the 1700 pilots, the worry is that the company is setting up subsidiaries to employ pilots on lower wages and conditions. This happened in 2004, when Qantas set up Jetstar and then Jetstar Asia. Now Qantas talks of more subsidiaries in Asia and New Zealand.
The TWU wants provisions in their new agreement that mean outside contractors get the same wages and conditions as the unionised workforce, thereby discouraging Qantas from outsourcing work and undermining wages.
But Qantas has flatly refused any negotiations on this. Chief executive Alan Joyce has been belligerent, saying the pay and conditions claims are “kamikaze”, “vandalism” and “damaging the Qantas brand”.
Qantas management’s actions have done more to damage “the brand”. The top nine executives gave themselves a 58 per cent pay rise at the end of last year. Qantas has been convicted of a freight price-fixing cartel (see box) and has cutback on maintenance and safety.
In the past Qantas has beaten the unions. If things are to be different this time, it’s important to understand why.
Firstly, it uses divide-and-rule tactics. With 13 unions in Qantas, the CEOs have traditionally taken on one union at a time. The unions, to their detriment, have continued to allow this to happen.
Qantas recently signed off on a deal with the ASU, which covers 8000 employees in telesales, administrative and check-in jobs.
The pilots and engineers EBA talks are open now, while the TWU talks open at the end of June.
Secondly, during every round of negotiations Qantas whines about the parlous state of its profits and the unions agree not to fight for their full claim. In the year the last EBA was agreed, 2008, Qantas made a record $969 million profit.
True to form, Joyce emailed staff recently saying, “It is disappointing that our unions do not understand the severity of our current position.” Qantas’ net profit for the first half of 2010-11 was $241 million.
Giving the lie to its “parlous state” line, in April Qantas announced more flights to London and Los Angeles after its tenth super jumbo began service. It bought three more new planes early this year.
Finally, the company intimidates the unions. The TWU has been threatened with the use of “strike-breakers” trained in Los Angeles. In 2008 it made the same threat about “strike-breakers”, without actually using them. Qantas and Fair Work Australia are currently taking the TWU to the Federal Court for fines, $1 million compensation and unspecified damages for “brand damage” for four-hour strike action it took in 2009.
The tough talk from Qantas shows unions will need to fight, with strike action and solidarity across the workforce, in order to win a decent EBA.
By Tom Orsag
May, 2011
Three key unions at Qantas are pressing demands for job security and above-inflation pay rises.
Pilots, aircraft engineers and ground staff, like baggage handlers, catering staff, ramp handlers and refuellers, are all negotiating new enterprise agreements. They are covered by three unions—the Australian and International Pilots Association, Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association and the Transport Workers Union (TWU).
A war of words erupted between Qantas and the unions in March and April.
The 1500 member engineers union has already balloted it members, who responded with a clear majority for industrial action. However, the leadership rushed to say it would not strike over Easter.
Job security is a major issue for the unions. For the 1700 pilots, the worry is that the company is setting up subsidiaries to employ pilots on lower wages and conditions. This happened in 2004, when Qantas set up Jetstar and then Jetstar Asia. Now Qantas talks of more subsidiaries in Asia and New Zealand.
The TWU wants provisions in their new agreement that mean outside contractors get the same wages and conditions as the unionised workforce, thereby discouraging Qantas from outsourcing work and undermining wages.
But Qantas has flatly refused any negotiations on this. Chief executive Alan Joyce has been belligerent, saying the pay and conditions claims are “kamikaze”, “vandalism” and “damaging the Qantas brand”.
Qantas management’s actions have done more to damage “the brand”. The top nine executives gave themselves a 58 per cent pay rise at the end of last year. Qantas has been convicted of a freight price-fixing cartel (see box) and has cutback on maintenance and safety.
In the past Qantas has beaten the unions. If things are to be different this time, it’s important to understand why.
Firstly, it uses divide-and-rule tactics. With 13 unions in Qantas, the CEOs have traditionally taken on one union at a time. The unions, to their detriment, have continued to allow this to happen.
Qantas recently signed off on a deal with the ASU, which covers 8000 employees in telesales, administrative and check-in jobs.
The pilots and engineers EBA talks are open now, while the TWU talks open at the end of June.
Secondly, during every round of negotiations Qantas whines about the parlous state of its profits and the unions agree not to fight for their full claim. In the year the last EBA was agreed, 2008, Qantas made a record $969 million profit.
True to form, Joyce emailed staff recently saying, “It is disappointing that our unions do not understand the severity of our current position.” Qantas’ net profit for the first half of 2010-11 was $241 million.
Giving the lie to its “parlous state” line, in April Qantas announced more flights to London and Los Angeles after its tenth super jumbo began service. It bought three more new planes early this year.
Finally, the company intimidates the unions. The TWU has been threatened with the use of “strike-breakers” trained in Los Angeles. In 2008 it made the same threat about “strike-breakers”, without actually using them. Qantas and Fair Work Australia are currently taking the TWU to the Federal Court for fines, $1 million compensation and unspecified damages for “brand damage” for four-hour strike action it took in 2009.
The tough talk from Qantas shows unions will need to fight, with strike action and solidarity across the workforce, in order to win a decent EBA.
By Tom Orsag
I think a new name might be appropriate for the Rat, FLAUNTUS.
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I think you will find outing people here is frowned upon.
Well bugger me. Just thought I would read the rules and what does it say?
Do not 'out' (reveal or attempt to reveal) the identity of another poster.
Last edited by ALAEA Fed Sec; 28th May 2011 at 00:54.
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Originally Posted by Taildragger67
That article linked to in The Australian - it's by 'Joe Hildebrand'.
That name seems to have been at the top of several very anti-pilot, pro-management articles in a number of Murdoch papers lately (Aus, Tele, Herald Sun).
That name seems to have been at the top of several very anti-pilot, pro-management articles in a number of Murdoch papers lately (Aus, Tele, Herald Sun).
But I assume his email would normally appear in the Daily Tele hardcopy at the bottom of his opinion columns like most others do (though I don't have it handy), so feel free to email him with the real facts!
BTW, as far as the most recent column of complete tripe goes, I have calculated that based on the apparent average wage Qantas 747 pilots earn (according to the Murdoch press), and my 5 years on the 747, Qantas payroll have underpaid me by a little over $1.1 million. I'm thinking of demanding the money from them.
I contacted joe via Face**** email and politely
pointed out the errors in his article, queried about his fact checking,
and suggested he contact
Aipa to get a balanced view.
He replied "stop cyber stalking me flyboy and take your fat pay cheque somewhere else"
Quality journo.
pointed out the errors in his article, queried about his fact checking,
and suggested he contact
Aipa to get a balanced view.
He replied "stop cyber stalking me flyboy and take your fat pay cheque somewhere else"
Quality journo.
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The naivety and arrogance shown in the last few posts is breathtaking. Are you guys actually trying to get everybody offside?
Incredibly insulting to all journalists - but you would be blissfully unaware of that. You have absolutely no idea. You probably think that integrity is the exclusive domain of pilots.
Put yourself in his shoes for a moment. He is probably highly annoyed at all the emails he has gotten from pilots over this. If those emails read anything like the last few posts, he would be feeling that these pilots are insulting, arrogant, ignorant, and childish.
"Joe, you're our new Qantas pilot dispute reporter. Do a column on these greedy pigs. All you need to know is in the fax."
obviously can't back himself with evidence so he goes the childish way
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Here is a suggestion everyone should take when reading false statements from journalists, and those who do not check their facts, and those who like to respond to their untruths like the journalist above has. It's time to make them accountable as "professionals".Journalists code of ethics - an oxymoron? Most media journalists belong to the Australian Journalists Association, a division of a trade union called the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA). Members are required to follow a code of ethics (shown in full below).What if they breach the code?You can lodge a complaint with the Judiciary Committee of the MEAA. A panel of five journalists will hear your complaint.If you are dissatisfied with the outcome you may lodge an appeal with the Appeals Committee - a panel of three journalists.If you still have not received justice you lodge an appeal with the National Appeals Committee. It consists of a panel of - you guessed it - five journalists.The media proprietors also have their own cosy self-protection club called the Australian Press Council. They have a similar mechanism for dealing with complaints. The AJA withdrew their support from the Press Council some years ago, according to Bev East, Industrial Officer for the MEAA, Perth because "they didn't really do anything. They just warned people and that was it".AJA CODE OF ETHICS Respect for truth and the public's right to information are fundamental principles of journalism. Journalists describe society to itself. They convey information, ideas and opinions, a privileged role. They search, disclose, record, question, entertain, suggest and remember. They inform citizens and animate democracy. They give a practical form to freedom of expression. Many journalists work in private enterprise, but all have these public responsibilities. They scrutinise power, but also exercise it, and should be accountable. Accountability engenders trust. Without trust, journalists do not fulfil their public responsibilities. MEAA members engaged in journalism commit themselves toHonesty Fairness Independence Respect for the rights of others 1. Report and interpret honestly, striving for accuracy, fairness and disclosure of all essential facts. Do not suppress relevant available facts, or give distorting emphasis. Do your utmost to give a fair opportunity for reply.2. Do not place unnecessary emphasis on personal characteristics, including race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, age, sexual orientation, family relationships, religious belief, or physical or intellectual disability.3. Aim to attribute information to its source. Where a source seeks anonymity, do not agree without first considering the source’s motives and any alternative attributable source. Where confidences are accepted, respect them in all circumstances.4. Do not allow personal interest, or any belief, commitment, payment, gift or benefit, to undermine your accuracy, fairness or independence.5. Disclose conflicts of interest that affect, or could be seen to affect, the accuracy, fairness or independence of your journalism. Do not improperly use a journalistic position for personal gain. 6. Do not allow advertising or other commercial considerations to undermine accuracy, fairness or independence.7. Do your utmost to ensure disclosure of any direct or indirect payment made for interviews, pictures, information or stories.8. Use fair, responsible and honest means to obtain material. Identify yourself and your employer before obtaining any interview for publication or broadcast. Never exploit a person’s vulnerability or ignorance of media practice.9. Present pictures and sound which are true and accurate. Any manipulation likely to mislead should be disclosed.10. Do not plagiarise.11. Respect private grief and personal privacy. Journalists have the right to resist compulsion to intrude.12. Do your utmost to achieve fair correction of errors.Guidance ClauseBasic values often need interpretation and sometimes come into conflict. Ethical journalism requires conscientious decision-making in context. Only substantial advancement of the public interest or risk of substantial harm to people allows any standard to be overridden.
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Sorry for the lack of spacing etc but for some reason I am unable to click on things like bolding, underlining etc when I am posting. I use paragraphs and spacing but when I submit my post it automatically removes it all and posts it as one continuous post.Anyone know how I can rectify this?
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Sorry for the lack of spacing etc but for some reason I am unable to click on things like bolding, underlining etc when I am posting. I use paragraphs and spacing but when I submit my post it automatically removes it all and posts it as one continuous post.Anyone know how I can rectify this?
What browser are you using?
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Full disclosure & VH-Cheer UP
If you are having trouble with the editing (bolding underline etc) you need to select enhanced WISIWIG editing in your profile, under:
EDIT OPTIONS > Miscellaneous Options, pull down menu for Enhanced Interface full WYSIWYG Editing (you probably had the simple interface set).
Click here to go directly to your profile Edit Options
If you are having trouble with the editing (bolding underline etc) you need to select enhanced WISIWIG editing in your profile, under:
EDIT OPTIONS > Miscellaneous Options, pull down menu for Enhanced Interface full WYSIWYG Editing (you probably had the simple interface set).
Click here to go directly to your profile Edit Options