I suspect some will think this is a Jetblast topic, but when I look at the reporting on the current pilot shortage in Australia, V Australia offering 156K (or is it 168K? – whatever; both are a bloody insult) for a wide body international captain AND see the thread that the Virgin Training Manager is paying for his own endorsement onto the 777, I can’t help but feel – very strongly – that it’s very much an Australian Aviation topic.
‘The Australian’ 9 November, page 7
(Headline) Hawke strokes ALP’s fire in Howard’s seat
“Thank you, fellow union thugs,” was how Bob Hawke began an impassioned speech…. Mr Hawke… told an adoring crowd that Mr Howard’s campaign was built around two lies. The first was that the union movement was evil. “No institution has given more reality to the concept of a fair go,” Mr Hawke said.
This from the man who oversaw and gloried in the destruction of unionised labour in the Aviation industry eighteen years ago at the bidding of a “mate”? Incredibly, the vast majority of Australians – and the Australian media - have such a short memory that no one puts the question to Hawke to ask him why unionism is such a good thing now, when he, the ex leader of the ACTU, forced pilots to enter into individual contracts (shades of ‘Work Choices’) and would not allow pilots to be represented by their union.
Look no further that this sorry excuse for a man if you want to lay the blame for the current sorry state of affairs in our industry.