Originally Posted by
QF Observer
I will start by stating that I am NOT a Qantas employee nor have I ever been one, but am indeed a shareholder, albeit an extremely minor one...
From memory the engineering dispute last year lasted a little over 4 months, my company switched to Virgin Blue, because we knew at least we will get to our destination on time, even though the Qantas service is superior. We are today still with Virgin and so are other companies that we do business with, who also switched, so the $150m cost of the dispute, I think is not a static figure and will grow and the true cost is far greater and perhaps unmeasurable.
As an outsider, I don't really expect you to understand the situation fully. I understand why your company would have switched to Virgin Blue, but I still stand by the engineers on this one. If Geoff ******** hadn't been so arrogant, reasonable negotiations could have occurred and such large scale damage would have most certainly have been avoided. What the engineers were asking for was absolutely reasonable. They didn't even do much in the way of industrial action, either. The majority of the industrial action was in the form of overtime bans. If a company starts to fall apart because it relies so heavily on overtime then it proves it has some pretty big problems.
Any way im sure I will cop a barrage of abuse from you overpaid, undereducated hosties out there. Give it your best shot, Ive read the crap you post and look forward to the entertainment.
Under-educated? FYI, it is my understanding that long haul cabin crew are statistically the most highly educated employee group in Qantas, many of them holding various degrees and other professional qualifications. We've got doctors, lawyers, dentists, nurses, teachers, engineers, architects, police, etc, as well as plenty of people who have worked in five star hotels, etc. It's a really diverse group of employees. The majority of us have worked in other industries and have brought life experience to this job. We were all something else before we were "trolley dollies". I know there might be a number of crew out there who may have become "stale", but what do you expect from years of low morale and constant attack from management?