Forty Two days have elapsed since the announcement of QF's plan to cut 1750 positions.
Sixteen Pprune pages and 317 posts of mostly speculation about cuts, with a few nuggets about the low hanging fruit - contractors, being told to pack their bags.
This is not good. The reason it is not good is because it indicates, at best, bad management, at worst, it is a form of workplace bullying.
When you cut workforce size, you either do it "quick and dirty" or "slow and clean". The alternative "slow and dirty" maximises the stress on staff.
By "quick and dirty", I mean 1750 people at once get the "Don't come Monday" notice. You always do it on a Friday to give everyone a few days rest. You pay all entitlements absolutely and in my opinion you should also add a bonus on top of that for the associated trauma.
The following Monday morning, you come out with the inspirational message to staff about how those left behind will cope and that there are no more cuts planned and today is a new beginning.
"Slow and clean" on the other hand, involves open consultation with all staff about where the company is going and the statement that not all employees will want, or be allowed, to continue the journey. You then open up negotiations, trot out your VR plan, organise your retraining and job finding scheme, organise send off parties on a weekly basis etc. etc.
The middle way, "Slow and dirty" involves no consultation, deliberate secrecy, the generation of rumours, staccato removal of people with no apparent rhyme or reason over many many weeks. No one is "safe" it is a never ending process.
Yet this "slow and dirty" process seems to be what Qantas has used in the past and is continuing to use which does not in my opinion, bode well for the company. We saw it in the treatment of the poor bloody Melbourne maintenance engineers, today perhaps their work would be outsourced, tomorrow perhaps not. Let them stew. They don't matter. The "Legacy Airline" quote was also a deliberate passive aggressive threat to everyone who worked at mainline - it's a form of workplace bullying.
It seems to me that nothing has changed, unless I am mistaken, and Qantas will continue to treat it's staff with the utter contempt that has become its hallmark, to the detriment of staff, shareholders and the travelling public.
P.S.
Cart Elevators post is a perfect example of the confusion and despair people feel under such circumstances, and I assure you it is not good for business:
Apparently we have to shed about 1700 jobs. I get that,but at the same time as one of the last Qantas crew to be hired I could be staring down the barrel of redundancy.Yet I was recently forced to attend "Qantanimo" and do the exceptional thing.T..................................................... .
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I reckon they spend more on just one of this stupid day than it takes to keep 20 of me in a job.
So they can afford all of this but they have to sack 1700 staff because of costs? I could really understand them doing things like this in good times,but now?
It really makes no sense and makes me so angry at the company. ............................................................ ........................
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Some old woman was carrying on about how the place was $10 million to build and how everything was "wonderful". Great,how many jobs could have been saved with that 10 million dollars? Do the idiots that run exceptional have a direct line to reality? ............................................................
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But they can afford to keep doing this crap at the expense of peoples livelihoods. It makes me sick. .....................................................
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.................................................... We are disposable.