Originally Posted by
V-Jet
SA - I would make an educated guess that it's a credible threat.
1 - Joyce has turned Qantas into a company with an inner culture of bullying. Which I never thought could be possible.
2 - He, personally, has a penchant for out of the box bullyboy tactics and has followed through. He proved he was _such_ a BIG and IMPORTANT little man when (amongst other things) he held the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting to ransom in 2011.
3 - He will personally be licking his chops at the adulation he will receive if he can put (another one) over the pilots by all the sector 7g drones who detest (and I mean detest) what pilots get paid. No they haven't the faintest clue what pilots do, no they don't understand the job but the level of rage is off the charts.
4 - He is, if nothing else, an egotistical (and loathsome, uninspiring, incompetent at business) and generally insipid little creep who would NOT have broadcast a threat like that without very sound reasons that he won't be made to later look a fool.
The clincher for me is that there is no point whatsoever thinking even for a second that it might not be worth fighting in every way possible because the risks to the pilot body and every GA/Flying Doctor in the country are extreme. If this little stunt does see the light of day the floodgates will open and I can foresee that it would never financially stack up for any Australian to ever become a pilot. The costs to start would be too high (compared to lessons in Bangladesh) and the chances of anything like a career would be too low (cheaper to import pilots from overseas) for anyone to 'make' it. It's too important to just roll over and play dead a la the 787 nonsense 30% pay cut we asked for.
FedSec #1086 post is, as usual, very wise counsel.
Agree, and I hope we can apply enough pressure to get a decent EA for mainline pilots to fly it.
But, my fear is that if we fight too hard, Tino et al will just go ahead and outsource the flying - which I think would be an even worse outcome than keeping it in-house on mediocre conditions. It'd create a precedent and a credible threat for everything future negotiation.
I know that fear and pressure is exactly what Joyce and Tino want, but I don't think it's imaginary or a bluff this time (unlike some of the previous cries, in 2011 and what followed).