It's an age old battle tactic to divide and conquer.
As an ex member of the industry I am sitting back watching Q.F staff make the same mistakes as so many other now defunct airlines did. Striking is a useless tactic when you can be so easily and quickly replaced by a ready trained staff . There are heaps of Mam,ex ansett , compass etc etc staff who would gladly go in and accept your current award conditions and to hell with the consequences . Sad ,but true fact I'm afraid .
With d.j threatening expansion and S.Q still making noises about the aussie domestic and trans tasman markets Q.F could find itself in the situation of having to compete against seriously cashed up competitors , who have a fraction of q.F's operating cost base ,and within the next 18 months. Don't be surprised to see that the trade off for allowing Q.F to buy 25% of air sheep shagger is to allow S.Q to get their wish of an"open skies" policy in Australia. It will be really on then ! With shareholders to answer to Q.F will have to seriously address their operating costs.
And they only way to do that is to achieve serious wage reform. The easiest way to do that is to provoke a dispute , divide the workers and conquer them !
Don't fall for the trick . Make all the noises about being seriously pissed off about only getting three percent instead of seven , but for christ's sake don't put yourself in the position of giving Dixon the opportunity to screw you right over. It might cost you a 4% pay rise , but it may mean you still will have a job in the long term!
And I'm here to tell you that I wish I still had mine!