Totally agree with you Simon_T,
in an ideal world the senior management of Qantas might recognise that a re-engaged work force would deliver untold benefits. Unfortunately those benefits do not reduce costs and costs, and productivity that equates to an overall cost reduction is all that counts in their minds.
We have to find a way of delivering some of that cost reduction without either making the job no longer worth doing for whats being offered or secondly in a way that doesnt involve the company out sourcing all of our jobs to O/S based crew or short haul or Jetstar international.
If the OS crew or the other Qantas group employees keep undercutting us for their own job security then its the spiral to the bottom that we have to try and avoid.
I dont think that having the view that Dixon and his management can get stuffed and we will just run along hanging on to the family silver will protect us for ever.
At some stage we need to take a wholesale look at the future of flying and decide whether we want to try and compete in some way with the others that want our work or get out of it all together,
Flying and flight attendants are going the way of the non existent manufacturing industry in this country. Now its not just Us in the flight attendant position but engineeers with their work going to asia, and pilots being sent to singapore and check in staff being replaced with computers.
Personally i cant believe Australians want to live in a country like that but i know for a fact that they dont give a rats ass as long as they can get a cheap ticket and a plasma made in china from harvey norman on a 4 yeat interest free deal.
Some time in the future someone will have to deal with the consequences of it all and i am sorry to say that many of us will be like the shoe makers and tv makers that used to be in australia unless either the ppl of australia or the goverment changes its policies,
In the mean time i hope the FAAA contunues to keep jobs in Australia as its highest priority in the hope that we can live to fight another day in better times