Well, I see a few people haven’t allowed my “It (the Dispute) wasn’t about money” comment to pass unremarked. In search of brevity, (never my strong point!), I oversimplified, but I’m not retreating from my claim. To explain: for me, and I believe the vast majority of the pilots involved, ‘the dispute’ didn’t become ‘the
Dispute’, with that all-important capital ‘D’, until after Aug 24th, so let me amend my original comment to:
“After Aug 24th and the mass resignations, for the vast majority who still refused to go back, it was no longer about money.”
I can’t speak for the minority, many of whom who saw the radically changed situation after Aug 24th as a once in a lifetime opportunity to gain a huge pay rise, rapid promotion or a shortcut to permanent residence in Australia.
It will probably draw more howls of outrage for me to say it, but, without wishing to cast any personal or professional aspersions at the people involved, let me remind the post March 90 ‘clean skins’ within AN and TN that many if not most of you only got your jobs (or got them as early as you did) because 1288* far more experienced pilots were denied the opportunity of even being interviewed.
And they were denied this by their heroic ex-colleagues who said (and I quote superhero Dick Marman here)
that it would be unsafe to share a cockpit with them. It’s curious how the safety issue doesn’t seem to matter one whit now that it’s the heroes trying to find jobs in airlines where those dreadful ‘stay-outs’ are now working, isn’t it?
*(I’ve deducted the token re-employed ‘12 Apostles’ from the 1300.)
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And in closing:
Pole Vaulter, I can’t let your following comment to pass unremarked.
You really dont (sic) want to start me on the number of jobs that would have been shed prior to 89 except for intervention by the AFAP, that could really bring up some truthes (sic) if you really want me to start.
I agree 110% with what you’ve said. The AFAP did fight to maintain employment for a number of pilots who many of their colleagues
at the time thought to be inappropriate people to be in the job, (one of them even gets a mention on this thread), but what you neglected to mention was that, almost to a man, these people were among the very first to turn their backs on the Union, adopt the ‘hero’ mantle and return to work for the airlines.
There were also more than a few people in the post 89 AN (and I’m assuming TN) who gained jet commands who were on a four lane downhill highway to becoming permanent First Officers in the ‘old’ AN. You know who you are (and I assume many of your younger ‘clean skin’ colleagues know who you are as well) and you know I speak the truth.