I just watched AJ's announcement
“Pilots have been using PAs to make political statements to our customers.”
The gist of the announcements highlight one major job security clause: Qantas Pilot for a Qantas Flight. It’s what the majority of passengers want.
What do you call standing in front of a press conference, making disingenuous, inaccurate and untruthful statements designed to trigger a response from the politicians? The Tourism Minister gets a flea in his ear from your former boss GD and responds accordingly! Remember, as a CEO of an ASX200 company, your access to politicians for behind-closed-doors dialogue is far greater than any Qantas pilot.
One union leader has gone so far as warning customers not to fly with Qantas before Christmas… try to destroy the business that employs his members.”
He advised that that’s what he’d do. He didn’t warn anybody. It was the responsible thing to do.
We’re trying to destroy the businesss? Quite the opposite in fact. We want to undo some of the poor business decisions that have resulted in the loss of customer work and the revnue it generated; the reduction in flying from poor route, timing and fleet decisions,; aircraft unavailabilities and reduced reliability due to lack of logistics caused by outsourcing… the list goes on!
“Today I regret to announce that go slows and overtime bans by the maintenance engineers are now making it difficult to clear maintenance tasks in a timely fashion. We are seeing a shortfall of (line) maintenance capacity of… 8%”
Go slows? Well, we’re working precisely to ALL the policies and procedures management wrote – even the silly ones we usually ignore. Are you suggesting we should work contrary to company policy and procedure? To do so is a dismissable offence under company policy. If you want to blame us for go slows, look for blame a little closer to home.
Overtime bans? So the only way the company can acquit the 8% shortfall in required maintenance work is with overtime? Does that mean you could really do with 8% more engineers? Why then the stated plans to make 300 out of 1600 maintenance engineers (most of them from line maintenance) redundant before the ink is dry on the enterprise agreement?
You also forgot to mention the 75% cut in logistics, the falling reliability of spare parts due to outsourcing, rework of poor overseas maintenance, and the poor state of infrastructure, tooling and ground equipment.
“This is why we are grounding (the equivalent of) four narrow body 737s and one widebody 767…
Six of our oldest 737-400s and two of our oldest 767s were scheduled to be removed from service this year. These older aircraft chew up more maintenance than the newer aircraft. This is just a rehash of plans already in place, ala Bob Carr and NSW Labor - announce, repackage and re-announce.
“These aircraft are from the Domestic operation… there will be no impact on the International operation.”
I’m confused. Didn’t Domestic make a $440 million profit and International make a $200 million loss? Why are you grounding Domestic aircraft?
I understand why people are wondering why Qantas management can’t just sit down and deal with these unions. Well that’s exactly what we’re doing. We have 15 unions in Qantas and a track record of being positive and flexible in our approach to negotiations… We have always been ready to negotiate a fair agreement… ”
Really? Why did you stonewall for 8 solid months in the ALAEA negotiations? Why did you refuse to meet on the latest occasion that the ALAEA invited the company to talk? Too busy crafting your press statement? Why are we STILL waiting for a full and considered counter-offer from the company, 13 months after negotiations commenced?
“Our pilots and engineers are among the best compensated in the world, with outstanding pay and conditions.”
We’re also some of the best, most experienced pilots and engineers in the world.
Remember, Qantas has been around for 90 years. You have pilots and engineers who have been with the company for 30 and 40 years: the average age of Qantas engineers is 49! That kind of experience deserves adequate recompense. Virgin Australia has only been operating for 10 years.
You are in this situation – particularly among the engineers - because you have failed to employ and train younger engineers. You cannot attract them to Qantas because your competitors pay structure actually pays younger engineers better than Qantas – a pay structure that has evolved over time into an archaic, befuddled and uncompetitive mess. We are negotiating in good faith to try and change that pay structure.
You’d get a lot better value for money from the pilots if you hadn’t almost halved their flying hours. And you’d get a lot more value for money from your engineers if you trained them more and backed them with the logistics, tooling, equipment, policy and procedure we need to get the job done.
“They want the right to control key elements of how we run this company.”
We want Qantas to remain in Australia, employing Australians, paying Australian income and company taxes and therefore supporting Australia, which is what most Australians want.
“Whether it’s the engineers union demanding a veto on the modernistaion of work practices…”
We offered to sensibly negotiate on Maintenance On Demand and you refused, because you were determined to crash or crash it through.
“Qantas is an international business expanding into Asia. Not one single job will go as a result of these plans.”
Really? What about the 1,000 job losses you announced two months ago? You are retiring the aged and fuel-inefficient Qantas mainline fleet and not replacing them. All new A320 and 787 aircraft are going to Jetstar. When Jetstar receive the brand-new 787s, Qantas mainline will get back the worn-out A330s you and your predecessor gifted them. What business sense does it make to either keep or transfer your highest cost aircraft into the part of the company with the highest cost structure?
“Contrary to union statements, 90% of aircraft maintenance is done in Australia.”
Our union is on the record as saying that we agree 90% of aircraft maintenance is done in Australia. However the majority of component and engine maintenance and control over engineering logistics has been outsourced. Some of those outsourcing decisions have been abject failures, resulting in engines not reaching critical performance margins, engines and components with poor time-in-service standards, and parts not being available when and where they are needed. These failures further compound the challenges Qantas International faces while attempting to maintain an aged fleet – a fleet that will not see new aircraft in the foreseeable future. You have announced the biggest aircraft order in Australian history: 110 A320s and A320-neo’s – all of which will be based offshore. Guaranteed all 50 new 787s on order will go to the new Asian based airline. Qantas International will continue to wither on the vine while engineers are expected to do more with less.
“The best way to deliver job security is to deliver a strong and viable business.”
Why the offshoring? Why let Qantas mainline wither on the vine? Why are you trying to circumvent or breach the spirit if not the letter of the Qantas Sale Act?
Make no mistake, we are ready to do fair deals, but they must be reasonable… With the licensed engineers union, we have tried to set up more dates before Fair Work Australia, so our efforts continue. But instead of calling off the destructive industrial campaign to negotiate, these unions are doing what they can to hurt our business and our brand.
The engineers union has offered to provide engineers on overtime to cover the stop work meetings. It has been your decision to allow the stop work meetings to effect the business.
We have been compelled to this action by Qantas’ utter refusal to negotiate towards an agreed outcome. The action is designed to get YOU back to the negotiating table. The engineers union has bent over backwards to accommodate some of the company’s more outlandish claims. We have tried to arrange conciliation and you have knocked back the latest invitation. We have been willing to negotiate on most aspects of our log of claims. Qantas has not even provided a log of claims! How can we negotiate when we don’t know everything that you want, and you’re not willing to either meet or discuss some claims let alone actually negotiate.
Make no mistake, we are fighting for the survival of Qantas. What we are doing is akin to chemotherapy. The patient gets sick but the cancer is killed and the patient eventually recovers. This is not a death threat, just an analogy. We view your “5-year plan” as a cancer, not you or management.