Where's Ben Sandilands? What's his take on the planned action?
Here 'tis..............
Qantas, job security and a real discussion
May 10, 2011 – 6:51 pm, by Ben Sandilands
There are several problems for the public, and the media, in the reporting of the Qantas industrial issues that see the engineers taking protected industrial action this Friday and the pilot union possibly opting to do the same but later.
One problem is that Qantas has in the main responded to specific union claims with generalisations, meaning it is not arguing the issues that are the trigger for industrial action, and the other is that for the most part the media reports the union arguments in brief and in passing.
The result is that the public isn’t particularly well informed as to how either management or labor see the issues.
The reason Plane Talking carries detailed reports about the union side is that no-one else does, and the reason it hasn’t so far published detailed, line by line rebuttals or commentaries from Qantas is that there haven’t been any, as yet.
This summary of the situation being circulated among members of the engineering union, the ALAEA typifies the situation.
The Age Old Battle of Capital and Labour in the Qantas Licensed Engineers Strike Action
In what is shaping up as watershed battle for Qantas the age old fundamental argument of where a company should spend its capital is at the forefront of the issues.
The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) has given notice to Qantas its members intend to take industrial action to promote and further their claims in enterprise bargaining. Whilst the ALAEA’s wages claim is within the Qantas 3% parameters, the major sticking point is the ALAEA’s claim for security of employment for Qantas engineering employees.
In effect this claim is for Qantas to spend a relatively small amount of its capital to provide engineering and maintenance facilities, training and tooling to enable Qantas to perform the full maintenance of its new aircraft fleet in Australia which has a direct effect on employment opportunities for current and future Qantas engineering employees. The ALAEA estimates this amount to be less than $20 million for an investment that will sure up a major high technology capability providing benefits in aircraft safety, employment, spin offs to local companies and Government taxation revenue for the next 15 to 20 years.
Qantas currently performs the majority of its old fleet, the Boeing B747s, 767 and 737s, and Airbus A330 maintenance in Australia. However the B747 fleet is gradually being replaced by the Airbus A380 and the new Boeing 787 is intended to replace the B767 fleet. Qantas at present is not intending to do the A380 and B787 maintenance in Australia and the ALAEAs enterprise bargaining claim would have that work done in Australia.
The ask by the ALAEA is not a big one in dollar terms as Qantas already has a state of the art ($80M) Airbus heavy maintenance hangar in Brisbane and one in Sydney capable of accommodating an A380. The Brisbane hangar currently does B767 and A330 work and if the A380 work went into Brisbane the older B767s maintenance could be moved to Avalon Victoria which has done B767 heavy maintenance previously and has that capability. This would mean the Brisbane facility would become a dedicated Airbus facility.
The B737 fleet is maintained at Qantas Tullamarine Victoria with some overflow going to Avalon and occasionally overseas. The Avalon facility currently performs B747 maintenance and some B737 overflow maintenance and has a B767 capability. The issue of accommodating the B787s is somewhat more uncertain but has not arisen yet due to the uncertainty of the delivery of the aircraft. In summary Qantas is capable of satisfying the ALAEA job security claim, it just doesn’t want to make the investment in Australia.
If the ALAEA was successful in getting Qantas to agree to its job security claim there would be ongoing benefits to the economies and revenue for Queensland, NSW, Victorian governments as well as the Federal Government as effectively the majority of Qantas maintenance expenditure would occur within Australia.
That is a succinct argument. But where is the precise Qantas response, at this stage?
It is the lack of engagement by Qantas with the specifics of the pilot and engineering union claims that drives much of their job security concerns, which to summarise is that it doesn’t matter what they offer management it just wants them to go away and die, or not get in the way of a master strategy to shift much of the activity and assets of the Qantas group overseas.
If this is the strategy, and there is a fair bit of evidence that it is just in terms of things said by management, then government, and the public, might reasonably expect a good argument from Qantas as to why it can no longer make enough money in Australia, and some sort of reassurance that by calling Shanghai, Singapore, Auckland and Malaysia home on an expanded scale everything will be better than before.
If this is the strategy will it really substantially solve what may be other deep seated problems in Qantas, or resolve questions as to whether the group is experiencing troubled times because of how it runs its business in this country instead of unduly attaching blame to the fact that it is a predominantly Australian enterprise.