As was told to crew at the meetings, the Qantas Unions under auspices of the ACTU, (including pilots, flight attendants , engineers) met with the institutional investors of Qantas some months ago.
The purpose of the meeting was to assure the institutional investors that the combined Unions wanted a cooperative working relationship with Qantas management and that the collective approach had delivered qantas good results over the last years.
The acquisition of Qantas by private interests had not been made public at that stage and those institional investors (other than MAC BANK) will be divesting their interests in qantas to the private consortium.
There is little point in each union working separately and contacting the new potential owners. The combined Unions are working collectively and with the ACTU to communicate a joint position.
If it becomes necessary to have media activity etc, its better that the unions work together than individually, and that it what i believe is occuring.
That is the crux of the meetings with MAC Bank that occurred some time ago. When the meeting occured it was not widely publicised to any Qantas staff by any union. There was some comment on questioning at the most recent series of FAAA meetings however.
As far as taking the suggestions of crew...the FAAA offical are crew , they fly and communicate online every day and through the FAAA office. Those people to write the the FAAA and make suggestions are always replied to and acknowledged.
Given that the Qantas Unions work together closely and share a diverse range of ideas from a range of employees and highly qualified staff it would be rare that something that comes up in an anonymous and cantankerous site like pprune would not have already been considered or discussed.
To suggest that any Union let alone the FAAA would not listen to feedback is inconsistent with common sense. I would suggest that just as flight attendants and other employees let of steam in here, so to might some union officials.
The public and "not anonymous" position of the FAAA can be found by talking to the officials directly and in their newletters and other communications.
Whether Lowerlobe is actually Johanna Brem has been discussed by many but we will never know. Although many are convinced that the lowerlobe diatribe is straight out of the bavarian IR textbook from the past