Originally Posted by
Wunwing
Isdon.
I know a number who do have arts degrees and they all have good jobs. Its the more specialised degrees that seem to be a problem. But that is outside of the scope of this discussion.
Historically, as an industry, we have been very fractured industrially. In Qantas at one stage there were 26 unions who mostly "hated" each other. That allowed the employer and the Government to play each one off against the other. As a result, we are where we are today.
The reality of the IR process is that each workplace agreement is compared to the others and if there is a particularly bad agreement, like this one appears to be, then every other agreement including pilots agreements is subject to downward pressure. During my negotiating time I'd like a $100 for every time management produced a pie chart where all the wedges except pilots costs had gone down but our wedge had grown larger because we had held out position.
"Bagging" ( pun intended)others in your industry is always a dangerous tactic, as is eliteism.
Wunwing
We are captive to a media mantra... that unions are bad and business persons are good... leaners and lifters comes to mind... it is US-ecntric BS rhetoric and it needs to be stamped out. Yes, if unions do the wrong thing and get away with it then that means government is doing a p-sspoor job of regulating them.
The killer to this argument is that one of the richest countries in Europe and the world in fact is the Federal Republic of Germany. A country that is heavily, heavily unionised, that pays high wages and produces mostly very well made goods and has an excellent pension system/superannuation. I doubt you'll see people in Germany not being able to afford a house or working for 3 hours then doing another 6 hours 5 hours later without enough money to go home in the middle. Germany proves it can work and all this union bashing and manipulation of the law to produce pathetic situations like the one in this thread doesn't need to be the case. Like anything, there needs to be a balance.