Still flying after Ansett - Vol 3 - if allowed.
I hope Woomera will allow this, as there have been more positives than negatives in the preceeding and immensely well populated similar rooms.
Keep the same level of decorum, and maybe it will.
I just needed to say - leftfrontside - Thank you so much for what you have said. I did step on toes but out of ineptitude in phrasing what I wanted to say. The day I get nasty and venemous, I want Woomera to put a permanent block on me and my ISP.
I do not think myself worthy of being an honourary member of either group leftfrontside, as I do not and will never have the skills of you good people. My skills are doing the impossible with fare constructions and routings these days, but that comes with the inevitable disaster in the accounting system that a lateral mind produces. God help my accounts dude - he needs all the help he can get.
With regards to having the bottle that all showed in the face of a mongrel regime, I applaud you all for taking your individual stands. Apart from those that sought to do it for anything but survival or solidarity, that decision would be the hardest any of you will hopefully have to make in your lives, on both sides. In the case of us mere groundies, there was no support system such as the AFAP. I was Sales Manager Tas for Eeenie Weenie then, under the auspices of Ansett and on the skids to inevitable oblivion - no Union covered us, so we were just passengers. Same applied to the trafficys - FCU - think of he worst possible permutation of those letters and you have them totally described. Totally useless. Just a money collecting and practising disappearing acts when Members were in trouble.
I take on board the "never forgive" LFS and do understand it deep down, as I understand those that went back defending that action. The majority did what they did for reasons that they rationalised after much gut wrenching and indecision. It cannot have been easy either way.
It is nearly a Masonic Lodge, our industry. Mates I have worked with over the last 28 years are still mates, and get togethers bring back all the old memories, the good and the bad.
A stalwart of TAA DPO, Jack Snare was buried this week. Our beloved "Commission Man" (stood for election to the ANAC) succumbed to cancer, but up to 2 months ago he was regularly in my Agency discussing what the industry was doing. It is and alway is what we are, from refueller to Senior Check Captain.
My main worry for all of you now is, as I have said your vunerability as a group. If a compromise cannot be reached, then an accord must be made to watch each other's backs. We seem to be moving back into the same "dead zone" that preceeded '89, this time from external events and not necessarily Management excess. Please please please, tolerate to the point you can present a front that is truly united and strong.
I do not think Australia or the world could cope with a meltdown such as '89.
We groundhogs who worked the Airports considered 95%of the tech crew our mates, and they considered us the same but a subtle and omnipresent sense of who was in charge was all pervading. The other 5% were probably deselected from your blocks too.
The flight deck crew was our God, as it indeed should have been. Apart from a few instances from the 5%, what was said was what was done.
The internal confusion when our mates fought each other was incredibly disorienting. No ever seeing some of those wonderful guys and girls again cut deeply.
All I want is an Airline back and mates to be mates again.
Thanks again leftfrontside.
My late Uncle Ken "Boomer" Collins would approve of what you said, and that is more than good enough for me.
Best all.
EWL