Ultra
A balanced post with several valid points.
As I said in an earlier post, QANTAS is now a publicly listed company. Its directors have numerous commercial duties, one of which is to make a profit to return to shareholders.
One the other side are the unions. Their role is to protect and, if possible enhance the employment conditions of their members. Some award conditions stretch back to the Public Service era. In the eyes of management, these are troublesome and should be removed.
Then there's a company culture which, on any view, is one of distrust between employees and management.
QANTAS sees an opportunity to improve its bottom line. It is commercially obliged to pursue that opportunity. Part of that opportunity involves a restructure of some of its workforce. The union response is predictable enough - no way. It's like ballroom dancing - each side knows the steps. So negotiations start. Each side has some ambit in its various claims. Over a period of time there will be some posturing from both sides before an agreement is reached. Each side has something to lose and something to gain. All industrial disputes are settled eventually - the amount of time in dispute being directly proportional to the hairy chestedness of the protagonists.
That doesn’t mean that customer service is irrelevant. My own views are on this thread, and well known.
It seems fairly settled that some staff have lost focus. One option open to negotiation might be for both sides to agree on how to make disenchanted staff redundant, qualify for redundancy payments, leave and get an opportunity to retrain for another career with some financial assistance from QANTAS.
Consequential vacancies are filled by enthusiastic and committed promotees and recruits, with some locational and employment flexibility; in flight service improves; ex customers return to the fold; new customers are attracted because of the improved cabin service; load factors increase, profits go up, jobs become more secure, dividends to shareholders increase and hopefully the share price goes up.
And some where in all of the above, there has to be some bridge building between management and staff.