Originally Posted by aeromedic
The nature of change in the aircraft industry requirements for aircraft type, licence coverage and maintenance procedures in running an airline plays it's part in the evolution of agreements. In general, this evolution in agreements has reasonably met the expectations of both sides. But, poor managers and even poorer consultants advising them deliberately creating confrontations with unions and employees means that sitting down and working the blurred view of LOFO was never going to work.
My first principle in selecting line management is quite simple: Will they take responsibility and accountability?
Do that and 80% of Union issues go away. I believe my management team have far better things to do with their time than deal with the SPs or PCs or, God forbid, the LivLovers of the world. Get them out of my hair unless there's a major CF and let us focus on the business and getting effective and staying employed.
Whilst I believe Unions have a place they also need to learn that place. Management should manage, from the very first leading hand right up to the CEO and Chairman. I don't want Unions interfering with my site ad my operations. I only get that by being consistently fair myself and ensuring my people do the same. I expect the same from Union reps and, in the interests of being fair, when I was at JHAS we always got that.
There is a lot to dislike about the agreement at JHAS compared to more traditional Qantas and Ansett T's & C's, it surfaces here every so often, but the simple fact is that without a huge degree of flexibility the business would have gone under and everyone would have been in the same position as the poor buggers from various other facilities around Victoria. But I don't believe anyone who was there at the time I was could ever say we didn't put the message out there clearly and up front - if you can't commit to giving flexibility then you need to move somewhere else.
In return we got a huge amount of goodwill up front. I don't know what happened to it, I simply wasn't there. But one thing I know: people dislike bad news in their face but they hate bull****ters. That's the change that needs to be made.
Originally Posted by aeromedic
It also means the "right to manage" becomes a subject of ridicule instead of respect.
By not managing, minor issues become small issues which fester and grow into medium issues and ultimately big issues. The effort to solve them increases by a factor of 10 at each step of that progression. But it takes guts to put your nuts on the line if you're not certain of what you're doing so all too often managing things gets put off for doing another report or somesuch.
This is where the German model works well. Everyone raves about employees sitting on management committees and boards and how management in Australia won't respect that sort of input but the reverse is also true- it is all too rare to get genuine commitment from the workforce to pull shirkers and malcontents into line.
That's not to blame the workforce, it's to recognise that there are problems on both sides that are going to take a huge amount of trust building to overcome. I'm not talking some wanky "Pillars/Bridges of Trust" presentation, I'm talking about getting out in front of people and being brutally honest about what is planned and then talking and delivering on that plan. Because if that plan is communicated properly then people know where they stand and
what their future is and can plan accordingly.
Originally Posted by aeromedic
I would hope that in future agreements that appropriate wording can be inserted to ensure complete understanding by all parties
Mate, if you could deliver that you'd be a billionaire in very short order!