"....he's (Oldmeadow) wasted some money but no doubt money that thecompanies were willing to spend as an investment in their futures."
Let's be totally honest - he cost
Ansett, TAA, East-West and
IPEC their ENTIRE airline eventually. But not
before he cost them hundreds of millions of dollars.
An empiric experiment that failed.
Abeles is a Hungarian Jew and there are no worse people in the world to take on. He will win, so go and get your job back
I can't agree with your friend on that count,
relax737. IMO, Abeles was fooled into believing that Oldmeadow's tactics would bring a quick result (a couple of weeks is my guess), thereby giving Abeles a large windfall in a short time.
Instead, Oldmeadow GROSSLY underestimated the resolve of the pilot group, and the fight dragged on for several months, costing the airlines far in excess of any potential gains they might have expected to have achieved for probably 20 years.
Abeles visibly demonstrated his frustration with the lack of results achieved by following Oldmeadow's advice, when he appeared on Channel Nine's
Sixty Minutes, stating that he'd rather "shut Ansett down, than deal with the AFAP". When questioned as to whether he
really would do that, Abeles quavered and hesitated, before finally blurting out an unconvincing "Yes".
Oldmeadow's tactics are not smart, they are initially
(i)an attempt at whittling away at the employees' conditions, to
(ii)create a feeling of personal insecurity, and
(iii)a belief that the employees' representative union is powerless to help, and
(iv)a possible alternative supplier of labour, should there be a confrontation.
The very expensive steps of setting up the separate companies of
Australian and
JetStar to achieve the above, have now been supplemented by QF's buy-in to
J* Asia - away from the reaches of Australian Industrial laws and unions.
Oldmeadow might like to THINK he is a professional I.R. advisor, but in reality he is an I.R. QUACK, tempting company heads and CEO's with the carrot of greatly increased financial rewards, but in reality EXPERIMENTING - and to date nothing achieved, but a trail of destruction of companies, personnel, and wasted hundreds of millions of $$$'s!
Edited to answer
Johnny Utah. J.R. was hired as an
employee. How much input does the Chief pilot of QF have in determining the salary structure and work conditions there, or any other company? 1989 saw the successful introduction of "individual contracts" - management pilots have ALWAYS been on slightly different terms of employment to line pilots.
The topic is about
Oldmeadow - the I.R. Quack - how about we stick to that.
Start a separate thread if you feel the need.