When is the FAAA going to wake up???
What amazes me about the above statement is the complete lack of comprehension about what exactly the FAAA leadership has been saying for over 12 months.
Clearly its time for some flight attendants to either leave or Qantas should start some whole sale sackings of the dead wood..
The people who need to wake up are the crew that live in the land that time forgot!!!!
The entire world has changed over the last 20 yrs, in particular in aviation. Long HAul and to a large extent Short Haul Cabin Crew have seen little change.
A few whinge about hotels and slip ports, but the service onboard has never been easier, passengers in J/C and P/C sleep in flat beds and hardly wake and in Y/C they have IFE theat keep them occupied. L/H are working an average of 23 hours a week for a gross salary including all allowances of about 70-80k pa.
i know this coz my fellow flight attendants are regularly telling the banks that to get ever larger mortgages.
If anyone thinks that they can earn that sort of money with the conditions we enjoy elsewhere then they should just leave and show the way to all their mates.
The vast majority of crew are looking to the FAAA to work with the Company to achieve job security. That will only be achieved if QF management thinks that;
A) Long Haul crew are worth keeping on
B) That the FAAA has the capacity to negotiate pragmatically and sensibly rather than just saying no to everything.
and C) that the FAAA remains viable as it has done over many years because more than ever with the new IR laws individual will need their Union even more.
If anyone thinks that the FAAA leadership can perform magic then they will have to wait for SAnta to bring them their next wish list its not going to happen.
If flight attendants think that crew can somehow "fight" Qantas as opposed to salvaging as much important stuff as they can whilst negotiating on less important things and ensuring some esmblance of job security then they are deluded.
For those doomsayers that say its all stuffed anyways and we are all going to lose our jobs i say this...LEAVE NOW..because you will ensure that Qantas does do that if you continue to bahave the way you are.
Our only hope is to last out the current management by carefully working with them without throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Our EBA will be under attack when the new IR laws are passed. It may mean that the CAP on overseas bases is unenforceable. You wont be able to take industrial action so the only way forward is negotiation like unions have done in other countries where draconian laws were introduced.
Those workers who still have jobs and reasonable conditions negotiated. The domestic pilots in the 89/90 dispute are the best example of what happens when you get into a dispute that you cant win. They should have negotiated and they would all still have jobs.
When you see the new IR laws, and actually reflect how on balance our conditions are still excellent by flight attendant and community standards then perhaps you will understand some of the FAAA strategy for Job security