Flyboat North
The shutdown brought finality to all of the industrial actions. What do you suggest Joyce should have actually done? , what were his choices ?
Fair question.
He chose to lock out the parties taking protected industrial action (PIA) and grounded the airline until the lockout period commenced based on an internal safety department risk assessment. This forced the Government to apply to FWA to have the industrial action terminated under s 424 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (FWA 2009) on the basis that it caused significant damage to an important part of the Australian economy.
I think he had two other options:
1. Apply to the FWA under section 423 of FWA 2009 to terminate the PIA on the basis that it was causing significant economic harm to Qantas that it could not bear. This would have achieved the same outcome as the one he got but without adversely effecting all the paying passengers.
2. Negotiate with the unions to make a new workplace agreement.
You and he seemed to think that option 2 was not feasible.
I still have not seen any coherent reason given why option 1 was not attempted first.