I agree with you, SDS, about protagonists on both sides.
I don't agree with much else on this or like threads.
Posters who wish to deny the broad sweep of post WW2 Pilot industrial relations history sound to me like Global Warming Alarmists who suggest 1998 was the hottest year EVER while ignoring the Medieval Warm Period. Likewise many posters sound like Greenies trying to heard everyone towards their (utterly unrealistic) idea of Utopia.
I am going to suggest that if you don't understand the last 65 years of pilot industrial relations you will struggle to keep what is going on NOW in context.
Its a (truly) sad economic fact that when REAL wages go up employment goes down. I don't like it but there it is...and it really just IS.
If the only jet pilot wage scale in Australia was the QF mainline T&Cs J*/
VB/NJS/Tiger et al
simply wouldn't exist. But don't think the same number of pilots would ALL be flying QF mainline aircraft. QF
wouldn't be a whole lot bigger than it is now because fewer people would be able to afford the airfares.
So when QF pilots demand everyone hold out for mainline T&Cs they are, PROBABLY unknowingly, actually calling for less employment.
Sounds pretty selfish in that context doesn't it?
For 10 years now in this place we have watched one pilot group after another attacked in turn as the destroyers of our industry - the next lot of people leading the charge downwards. Without exception that vitriol has come FROM QF mainline pilots and been aimed at, in turn, NJS/
VB/J*/Jet Connect and Tiger.
I may have missed it but I don't remember a single instance of QF mainline pilots carrying out protected industrial action against what they perceive as the Great Satan.
Why is that - is it because you would have looked utterly fcking stupid downing tools to stop other people accepting employment in legal entities that are really none of your business?
Because thats really what it boils down to - the equivalent of going on strike because EK is taking flying you deem YOURS and inhibiting your career as a result.
I do remember AIPA joining forces with outside interests and saving QF (group) from the utter lunacy of the sale of QF to those c@%$ from the US - you should be very proud of that - YOU guys DID help save Qantas from utter destruction at the hands of corporate greed.
But I don't remember a lot else that uplifted me.
The sort of unity being espoused by Gen Y (and people like Keg who should be old enough to know better) is utopian BS. It has never existed, will never exist and could never exist. People have NEVER lived in the woods in harmony with nature - it was always a grim fight to survive.
As I said in a previous post you may not like all of this - I don't care one way or another - but that doesn't make it wrong/bad/immoral or any other adjective you chose.
I'll return to the main point of my previous post and ask again - WTF has happened in J* in the last 4-5 years that justifies all this angst?
When has there EVER been a large part of a pilot body ripping its employer, and itself, to pieces while enjoying impressive growth in wages and career opportunities?
Where is the evidence that J* is any less safe than any other airline - QF mainline as an example?
What is AIPA's input into the current JPC?
Emotions are running VERY high at the moment - and the first victim of emotion is rational thought.