If you are new then you could well have 30 years ahead of you at Qantas. They will ALWAYS have the upper hand. But this does not mean you have to willingly hand over vital pieces of the contract at the very first time of asking.
If you give in now then you will be giving things away every four years for the rest of your career until you wonder why this job you always dreamed of isn’t what you expected or hoped for.
This high stakes, threat laden negotiating tactic is Qantas’s standard playbook. Remember they said we had to agree by the end of 2019 or no Sunrise? Well it turned out to be just a bluff. They have upped the stakes but the game is the same.
Don’t believe that voting No only has one outcome. Joyce himself said his “first, second and third preference” is to do a deal with the current pilots. Negotiations can and will continue.