Airline Management has the pilot movement exactly where they want it. Divided. And the likelihood of any change to that in the short to medium term seems highly improbable.
In September 1981, the then AFAP President, Captain Fitzsimons remarked, “It is certainly in the best interests of all pilots to be represented by one industrial body, For many reasons it is also an advantage to present one concerted view on aviation matters to the rest of the industry and to other interested parties”. In November of the same year the AIPA President, Captain Westwood, noted that the TAA contender for the 1982 AFAP presidency had, “pledged his support for a restoration of relationships with the Qantas group”.
And here we are in January 2008. Divided!
With the formation of AIPA, Qantas pilots were understandably inclined to turn inwards and attend to their own priorities. A cosiness developed between the Company and Association that became unhealthy. A pathway from union leadership to operations management was established and the Company controlled the agenda. But AIPA are now imprisoned by new circumstances – the dynamics of semiautonomous business units that are responsible for their own profitability. The company / association relationship loyalty shown in the past has been dismissed by Qantas in the interest of shareholder value and personal bonuses!
The economic consequences of the semiautonomous business unit have been experienced by the Qantas pilot group who were ‘displaced’ when their high-wage jobs were transferred to cheaper labour. This transformation, and the AIPA president’s gross strategic error not to embrace pilots in the new business units (made almost immediately prior to his move to management), more than anything else is what has led to the declining power base of AIPA. The deleterious impact on pilot wages and conditions is likely to continue for many years to come.
But the economic effects are inseparable from the real world consequences. Global industry competition for cost advantage will not slacken and, not unexpectedly, is the rationale for the Qantas executive promoting fierce competition among the business units. It is this real world behaviour that has effectively weakened the positioning of the Association. If one semiautonomous business unit’s workers are prepared to accept lower wages and conditions, the jobs will move to them! Taken to the ultimate conclusion, all jobs will move to them.
For ordinary Qantas pilots, independent and insular, the challenge requires them to think anew their place in the world.
The only plausible way that we – the total pilot population - can defend ourselves against the “forces” of the of semiautonomous business units is to link our interests cooperatively with the interest of the each other pilot group.
AIPA will have to be prepared to create new alliances with those they view as being less significant but caught in the same dilemma.
The challenge, in other words, involves not taking the meaning of cooperation to a higher plane, but restoring it; restoring it to the plateau where we were prior to 1981. This awesome task does not begin by examining AIPA’s own complaints about the new system, it begins by grasping what will happen to all of us if we don’t impose a united position on management.