Erosion of Pay and Conditions - What are we doing about it?

[Wizofoz]

Ah Kap! You and your bendy figures!!

You've been told this numerous times before, but I'm sure you'll find a way to tell me I don't know how much I got paid!

For 55hrs/mth my base was 144K/yr. That's 12k/mth or $218/hr.

If I flew more than 55 hrs/ month (which I did EVERY month bar two in my entire time at AN) I was paid...$218/hr (that's STICK hr, pushback till shutdown, no extras no factoring), regardless of whether it was rostered, grey day, call out or whatever. AND that was what EVERY 737, A320 and 727 Captain got, as we were subject to a federal award.

SO, 144 is "almost twice" 120 , and 218 is 400. You've been talking to your accountant again!

So, on you suposed flight, VB guy $1.55/ ticket, AN pilot $2.08. 1.74% vs 2.33.

Not the point. The whole thrust of this thread is that pay and conditions for pilots are being eroded, and you oppose this for EVERYONE, EXCEPT your freinds at VB! You've just spent the above post arguing that it is right for VB to pay so much less than the majors, whilst decrying the fall in pay of the professtion!

Make up your mind!

[Kaptin M]

Let's see if I've got this right, using YOUR figures, Wiz. Oh, and you're telling us that an ex-AN pilot who was called out did NOT get that EXTRA callout fee?!
Now someone's telling whoppers.

Anyway using YOUR figures, and the immediately preceding example:-
"For 55hrs/mth my base was 144K/yr. That's 12k/mth or $218/hr.
If I flew more than 55 hrs/ month (which I did EVERY month bar two in my entire time at AN) I was paid...$218/hr"

As I used 80 hrs/month as the example, let's stick to that, and say that you flew an extra 25 hrs each month. at...how much did you tell us?...$218/hr...let's see now, that comes to another $5450.00 per month.
Whether you actually took leave or not, it was accruing, and you were entitled to it. And of course you had the obligatory simulators, Emergency revals, CRM, etc.

So using my same "bendy figures" of working for 10 months, your overtime (which I did EVERY month bar two in my entire time at AN) adds another $54, 500 to your base of 144K/yr = $198,500 per year.
Dividing that figure by the 800 hours (80 hrs/month x 10 months) in FACT works out at $248.00/hour for 1 pilot!
Let's now add in the F/O's salary (about 65% of a captain's) of $161.20/hour, using the same structuring.

Total ex-AN hourly crew costs - using YOUR figures, Wiz - come to $409.20. So in fact, you guys were costing even MORE than we originally thought!

Remember my EXACT wording given in the example, Wiz - if not, let me refresh your memory, "..and the ex-AN pilots at 55 hours and say 50% more moolah".
Thank you - you really are a "Wiz" for allowing me to prove my point, using YOUR figures.
"Not the point. The whole thrust of this thread is that pay and conditions for pilots are being eroded.."

And unfortunately the situation in Australia was exacerbated immensely when the "Wiz's" allowed the representation of domestic pilots to be taken away.
The bait was Greed, and once swallowed the hook went in.

It was the same pilot representation that was formerly able to keep the Wiz's in check, and to thereby protect the system for ALL to benefit by.
With that protection gone, it is obvious where we have ended up.
The playing field was set at "Ground Zero" for the VB pilots, thanks to the previous "custodians of Australian aviation" (a title they were annointed with by one R.J. Hawke, at the time). It was not THEY (VB pilots) who eroded the conditions, it was what they were offered, in the absence of national, unified, domestic pilot representation.

As Gnadenburg says, "Let's start with an association between AIPA and the AFAP on professional matters-air safety and airspace reform etc. See how it goes from there. With urgency."
Perhaps not a bad start. But to also protect the "grass roots" CPL guys, they also need to see the benefit of having a watchdog that will keep an eye on their present and FUTURE, by joining one professional pilots' association.

[Life as a journey]

This was a decent subject, until the fight started.

Please stop beating each other on the head.

It is distracting, if nothing else.

[Kaptin M]

Perhaps looking at WHY we are here, and where we have been, might help us to understand the nature of the problem.
Besides, the figures make for an interesting comparison.

[Sheep Guts]

I think we just have to realise that wages and conditions in most other industries have changed alot aswell. Especially Job security and fat retirement benefits are also starting to become a thing of the past. Just ask Mr. Grasso the Ex NYSE Chairman who was forced to retire due to his large Pay Packet package all $140 Million USD.

Enterprise bargaining and work place agreements are now very common. Why do you ask? Well for alot of Australians the Unions have done Bugga all for us in the last 20 years. Someinfact havent even been giving annual reports. This mind set that the Union is dead is really only the Unions problem.

It all comes down to Marketing really. The AFAP which I have admiration for does do some good, but I think it needs to do more recruiting and to Change its image and its legacies from the past. For example they need to do more grass roots recruiting at Flying schools etc. From there I think thyell be on a winner. They need to do more drive etc. in these areas. The AFAP needs to be proactive and come down to the schools and do talks. If they can snare membership at this level. Im sure th erosion of pay at the other end of Aviation in the Bush could be greatly improved. Does the AFAP provide any seminars on enterprise bargaining and work place agreements for all memebers includung Junior CPLs?

Only then will we see a difference. I know that the AFAP says it represents Pilots from all of the industry but really its allways been an Airline Pilot Represtative rather than the later. Until this changes and it embrasses all of us, only then it will a cohesian of Australian Pilots maybe able to change some conditions and improve the livability of our Juniors.


If Wages and conditions are changing, so do our methods of negotiation and enterprise bargaining and Representation from our Unions

No progress without change I say

Regards
Sheep

[Col. Walter E. Kurtz]

I don't have a problem with reforms to pay and conditions - as long as it is equitable and reasonable - and that goes in both directions:

Call out on non-duty days ("We never had Reserve/Standby - no airline needs that") was reaping another $1600

if thatfigure is in anyway true, What a w@nk. Many GA guys don't see that in a month, and that was an addendum!! No wonder the pilot group was resented.

I don't believe that anyone would disagree that reforms are required. But those reforms should be equitable and widespread. For example,instead of hacking one group off at the knees, well the whole group (including management at all levels, including the board etc) lose a knuckle or two. Across the board reductions have a better net result than demoralising and destabilising all the workers at 'the coalface'. Moral should be seen as an asset, just like efficient equipment and a little 'giving' goes a long way (in both directions).

Back to the pilots.....One of the greatest problems is evident in the fact that we externalise the blame. It's the companies fault. Its the fault of the 'scabs'. Its the fault of thosethat resigned. It's the fault of those hoardes of GA pilots who are willing to prostitue themselves into lower pay to get into an airline and last but not least - we blame the union for not doing the right thing.

But the union is only as strong as its members, and if you don't like wha tthey are doing, well why don't you get involved, pick up the phone and make your voices heard? And if you still don't like it, why not get even more active and run against the incumbent union reps and try and do better.

I'll tell you why - cause you will be busting your @rse to work on behalf of a 'collective' that couldn't bother it's collective @rse to do anything but bitch and moan (on forums like these!)

And that is the problem - the situation is degrading, but hasn't become BAD ENOUGH for the 'collective' to do something about it.

It is going to get alot worse - but by then it could be too late - and we will all be complicit in it's degradation from those that abused the system to those that sit back and watch it fall.

Good luck to all you GA guys and students coming up. That 'big airline' job you have 'dreamed' about will be better than your current GA lot, (but that is more of a reflection on how pi$$poor that section of the industry is) but it won't be enough when the babies and mortgages come through, and ya gotta be away so much and the kids grow up with a part time father.

PS Also, still waiting to hear from QF drivers.

[VB_Capt]

Let me add a little complete with typos. The wiz is telling the truth and the kaptin is lyuing, again.
I have many former Ansett and QF friends and I know that there was no callout fee for days off etc. They were paid at the same hourly rate as blocked. Base divided by 660 (55hours a month X12). If he flew SYD-CB he was paid 45 minutes and probabluy drove longer than that to get to work. The next day if he passengered home he was paid 45 mins divided by 2, the same as all ground duty, sims, all half price, and no dta for other than flying duty. Hourly costs for pilots in QF & Ansett were a lot less post 89 than they wer pre 89. How many times does he have to be told. km your figures are wide of the mark adn rubbery at best and downright lies and deceptive at worst.
The one thing I will agree with him (km) on thius time around tho is that if a heap of execs were taken out of the equation, the revenue wouldn't fall, but costs would.
I would never advocate a reduction in pay for pilots, or probably anyone except execs, but its worth noting that a salaried GP working in a shopfront clinic is paid about 70,000AUD. How's that make you feel?
It's only in the last 14 years that the AFAP has represented GA because its had sweet FA airline pilots to represent. Prior to that it onlyrepresented airline jox and will do again if they join because they elevate themselves to the positions within the organizations. The GA guys are generally happy to let them do so.
I've said it before tho and I say again that it's not what you do or what you are worth to your company. They will always want you for less. Forget work value, responsibility, rpofessionalism, safety and anything else yoiu want to name. They want to improve bottom lines and will do it at your/our expense. The days of unions having much input are gone for the time being. When market forces again turn, ie, shortage of pilots, they might again start to have some input and influencde.
Now can we get back to the thread since a few misconceptions/lies have been righted. mYet again.

[Kaptin M]

Slowly it all starts to come together.
But whether the realisation that pilots need to act as UNITED, professional group has dawned on many others who don't read tthis topic is probably doubtful.

I liked Sheeps post, and couldn't agree more..."The AFAP...needs to do more recruiting and to Change its image and its legacies from the past. For example they need to do more grass roots recruiting at Flying schools etc. From there I think they'll be on a winner. They need to do more drive etc. in these areas. The AFAP needs to be proactive and come down to the schools and do talks. If they can snare membership at this level.
However, as the Colonel points out in his last post, "But the union is only as strong as its members, and if you don't like what they are doing, well why don't you get involved, pick up the phone and make your voices heard? And if you still don't like it, why not get even more active...

And this is where the two come together. Pilots who are AFAP members need to make a point of explaining the benefits of joining, not least of all the MBF Loss of Licence, not only for the sake of new members, but for existing ones as well.
Just on the point that you raised, Sheep, "I know that the AFAP says it represents Pilots from all of the industry but really its allways been an Airline Pilot Represtative ". It was the airline pilots who, in fact subsidised the G.A. pilots. Access was - and is - ALWAYS available to any member who could be bothered picking up the phone, or calling into his local Branch for advice or assistance.
From VB_Crap comes this total LIE, "It's only in the last 14 years that the AFAP has represented GA because its had sweet FA airline pilots to represent." If that is so, then why was I able to join the AFAP as a G.A pilot, in 1975 - 28 years ago!!
And on the other - I used the figures as provided by one of you...the Wizofoz. Scrap it out between yourselves!!


As a generalisation, pilots need "spoon-feeding" to achieve anything - leave it up to the individuals to try to action change, and there is a high degree of probability that the status quo will remain!

[VB_Capt]

Are QF pilots acting as a UNITED professional group? If so they're still getting done. If not, why not after seeing the 89 fiasco?
I reckon unions will only have any influence when market forces are on their side. Otherwise forget it. So right now forget it. Too many of us and too few jobs.
You could probabluy join many years before that mate, but you weren't getting represented. I know I wasn't when I needed some help a long time ago in a pay matter. I remained a member though hoping for better days, but they never came. So you could be a memnber, but you werent represented would be closer to the truth.
Whuy should I scrap out something with wiz. You made the ridiculous statement that being called iun on a day off resulted in a $1600 penalty payment and it is just NOt true. The fact ios that QF and ANsett costs PER HOUR were much less post 89 than pre.
NOW LETS GET BACK TO THE THREAD.

[ferfarksache]

Funny how in the US and UK the 'Low Cost' guys n girls are often being payed more than the flag carrier's guys n girls.

The vast majority of BA guys n girls would love the 85K (including sector pay) that the Ryanair/Easyjet guys n girls get.

The whole 'Low Cost' model is really spin for low service and for attacking the COS of all employees, not just pilots.

Outsource everything possible....and in the end guess what?

THE AIRFARES ARE ABOUT THE SAME.

QF just had one of it's most profitable years ever and I have travelled on both VB and QF whose fares almost mirror each others most days. Just one feeds you...and I like their food!

Unfortunately all driven by greedy shareholders/management.

farksache

[410]

Some very wise words from Col. Walter E. Kurtz in his last post.

I think we all owe Wiley a large vote of thanks for starting this long overdue discussion with the thread he started about three threads ago that led to this one (the ]thongs and blue singles thread).

What amazes me is the seemingly widely held belief among pilots that the industrial situation today is ‘different’ and ‘more difficult’ than it was for our predecessors, and therefore what worked before industrially won’t work in today’s workplace for ***workers*** facing a threat to their pay and conditions. (I stress “workers” because, let’s face it, troops, that’s all we are, despite pretensions some of our luckier brethren, particularly those with a large white marsupial on their business cards.)
I got the following letter from a good mate who has recently retired from the industry after what everyone who knows him would consider a distinguished career. He was my first training captain when I won the Lotto and got that elusive airline job right on the upper age limit of 27. (Yes, not so long ago, that was the upper age limit to get into the ‘big two’.)

I’ve bold-faced it, hoping everyone will read it and take on board the wisdom it contains – particularly those among you, both heroes and younger hero-worshippers, who advocate the currently fashionable ‘every man for himself’ adage. For what it’s worth, I agree with him – the beginning of the end for all of us was when the QF pilots broke away to form their in house ‘club’. I believe management celebrated long into the night when they heard of that development way back in the early eighties, because they saw all too clearly that we had divided OURSELVES, with the obvious and inevitable consequences that we see throughout the farce that passes for an industry in Australia today.

Hi (410),

What is happening in the industry now almost brings tears to my eyes and I am out of it. When I joined Ansett in 1965, I was paid the magnificent salary of 23 pounds per week. The going salary for a new start bank clerk at the time was 28 pounds per week.

I left a job where I was earning over 30 pounds per week to start airline flying.

I sort of hated the bastard, but Dick Holt, with the backing of a strong association, slowly got significant salary increases, despite the bleating of the companies. They were strong in every sense of the word, industrially and technically. We were even a highly respected force in the International Federation of Air Pilots.

QF pilots saw the writing on the wall for their own little politically protected monopoly, and broke away (domestic pilots are a lower form of life and could not possibly fly internationally). It was sort of downhill after that as the managers and politicians watched what happened in the USA and saw us as a particularly naive and easy target.

Most of us probably hated what happened in 89 and would have done anything except betray our workmates or friends to have seen a satisfactory resolution to the then problem. That's where these parasites don't get it or their brains become fogged from sniffing petrol fumes. Their selfish and naive actions put the industry into inevitable decline. They are now the ones bleating along with the likewise naive, righteous QF pilots who stood on the fence and bleat "What are we going to do". There are also a lot of historically ignorant young pilots around now, who know they are being anal raped, but don't know why.

One statement Dick Holt made at a meeting years ago, burned into my brain, but probably went over the heads of most. "You guys are economically ignorant. Mark my words, gross dollars mean everything !" People at the time were wanting improved concession travel, free cars and benefits etc.

I think perhaps mad cow decease has been around longer than we think.

Xx

In closing, VB_Capt, your comment: <<“It's only in the last 14 years that the AFAP has represented GA because its had sweet FA airline pilots to represent.”>> is totally incorrect, as anyone with even a passing knowledge of the pre 89 AFAP will attest, (even heroes with non-selective memories, many of whom were GA pilots who were actively and effectively represented by the AFAP before they turned their back on the union and ‘looked after themselves’). However, judging by your previous posts on this subject, you seem to me to be someone who doesn’t like facts getting in the way of a deeply-held opinion.

[Col. Walter E. Kurtz]

Over the last 10-15 years there has been a general conditioning of workers by government and companies against the concept of unionisation and of the merits of being a a collective and organised workforce whose strength lies in unity and numbers, toward the individual work contract, especially by the current government.

This has been done over the years in a covert and not so covert way by media, anti union legislation (or attempted) as well as high profile strikes (Patricks??) that was supported by the government.

People who have been living in good conditions and working in conditions that were hard fought and won for them by previous unionists (members and reps) at great suffering and pain have become complacent, ungrateful and too self righteous (why should I pay my dues - what does the union do for me? all the while enjoying super, holidays, sick days etc etc won by unions and workers before them) and this suits employers because the workforce is steadily becoming weaker and weaker, and the actual workers are becoming complacent under these conditions.

At the end of the day, most workers have forgotten the power they have access to - not individually - but through one another acting collectively. (I always wondered why bank staff are so poorly paid and treated considering what power they hold. Imagine if you will, all banks shutting down for 1 or 2 weeks across the nation stopping the money supply!! Those staff could be getting a much better deal for themselves and their customers courtesy of companies who CAN afford it).

Therefore,what we need is to create a stick big enough to threaten management with.

Someone mentioned this before, but we should all be responsible for strengthening our union. It should be that if you are a professional pilot (airline or GA) you are either in the union (with us) or you are against us.
The union may have to modernise. It may have to spend money on PR etc to get the numbers up. It may have to carefully consider what kind of value it can add to itself to make it an organisation that pilots WANT to join, can gain BENEFIT from (except in the labour struggle etc etc. That's another topic, and a think tank would be required).

A strong organisation, comprising of committed membership is the only way to go - go to a building site and offer to work as a labourer as a non-union member for less than union rates, and see how long you will last - if you get my 'drift'. I am sorry if this seems a bit 'nasty', but sometimes people, especially selfish, self centred and sef seeking individuals, need to be forced into what is right for the collective (and in turn, for themselves).

I can assure you, that if a WELL THOUGHT OUT collective action was undertaken, (that means strengthening the union(s), proper planning for eventualities, consultation with members, and last but not least, retaining a GOOD or best PR/Advertising company playing the media to propagandise the struggle to the public to gain public support, as well as negotiated support from other unions in Australia) then management, to save their own @rses, would have to stabilise the workforce and get back to making profit. That may mean making reasonable demands (bythe unions) and also asking for reasonable concessions from management.

My intention is not to bleed the company - but just to obtain fare and commensurate conditions for what are 'unique' workers with a 'unique' place amongst 'workers', as well as allow companies to make profit from our labour.

It's about compromise - something that is fast disappearing from our language and understanding.

[Rongotai]

In the early 80's I was working for a union here in NZ. I was one of a group who went over to Australia and said, in summary "We are under huge attack in New Zealand. If we go down, so will you eventually because there will be a low cost, weakly unionised country on your doorstep. We haven't got the strength to fight this alone. We need your help."

The reply was "We haven't got a problem here. We are strong. There is no way that anything that happens in NZ could ever effect us. Sorry, we aren't going to put ourselves out for another country's union movement. Tough luck."

Well - now I look at Jetconnect and I look at Pacific Blue, and I look at the rows of Australian aircraft lined up for maintenance in Christchurch, and I look at the reverse migration of Australian airline employees into NZ, and I think 'Yes, this is the worst case scenario I envisioned in 1982.'

[Wizofoz]

Kap,

Let's see if I've got this right, using YOUR figures, Wiz. Oh, and you're telling us that an ex-AN pilot who was called out did NOT get that EXTRA callout fee?!

Yes Kap, I am CATAGORICALLY saying there was no callout fee. If you worked on a grey day or a day off you were paid the hourly rate for the flying you did (IF you were doing more than 55hrs that month. If not you got base pay only) PERIOD.

Now someones telling whoppers

You are suggesting I am lying. This is defamatory. Substantiate you claim or withdraw it (And no, "Someone told me they heard someone else say something at a barbeque" is NOT substantition!)

As to our numbers, my appologies. If I'd read your post more carefully I would have spotted the glaring error there-in contained.

In calculating the VB crews hourly rate, you divided their annual earnings by 1500. For that to be correct, they EACH would have had to have flown 1500hrs. Even VB pilots don't work that hard.

It works like this:- VB Capt 160k for 750 hrs - $213.33/hr
VB FO 100k for 750 hrs- 133.33/hr
Total crew 346.66/hr, exactley TWICE what you claimed.

Your figures re AN hourly rates are, in fact, fair if on the high side. So lets compare:- $409/hr vs $346/hr. Yes, I got paid more. And your point would be? Isn't the whole thrust of this thread that the degridation of pilots wages is a bad thing? Why then are you berating me for how much I used to get paid (By the way, I get pretty much the same now), especially when YOU get paid substantially more than ANY of the above figures?

And tell me, if the AFAP HAD been in charge, what exactley would they have done to stop new operators paying less than the majors were paid? I know you haven't lived in Aus for a while, but I can assure you industrial relations laws are such that it would have had no say.

Lastly, if it IS ok for people to come and work for a new entrant for less money, why WERE you so disdainful of the Skynet Asia Pilots?

[Fubaar]

For God’s sake, “Wizofoz”, give your *** sparring match with “Kapt M” a rest and address the subject of the thread. And maybe accept, that on this thread at least, the overriding feeling is that you and your heroic mates are at least in part to blame for the current parlous state of affairs within our industry.

[Wizofoz]

Fubar,

Any particular reason why you are addressing that comment to me and not the Kap?

[wandrinabout]

Its all about the illusion...the illusion that;

the travelling public has - pilots are overpaid glamour boys on a cushy number

the wannabes have - leave my carreer/university/school and get into flying, its a good deal

that the flying schools and training establishments portray - spend your money with us, and we'll open the door for you to the ultimate job

the airline excecs have - the pilots are a bunch overpaid button pushers that have over inflated ideas of their value, just another expense, and that the modern airliner/airline doesn't need experience and loyalty

the pilots have - it doesn't matter who I have to walk over to get 'the' job, or, I'll accept this absolute crap in the meantime, because it will get better down the track.



Until these illusions are put down for what they really are, I really dont think things are gonna change much.
- the public in general have no sympathy for us, we are merely overpaid bus drivers
- the wannabes are gonna lag behind reality by many years, to them aviating is what it was in the glory days
- the flying schools will continue to milk the market whilst there is a ready supply of willing and gullible wannabes with cash in their pocket
- the excecs are paid to improve the bottom line, and generally they don't yet realise that the pilots can be used to assist
- pilots are notorious in the every man for himself attitude. The best deal is on the biggest and shiniest jet, so we will continue to shaft each other in order to get there.


Maybe there is some glimmer of hope on the horizon.
I understand there are some LCC's, namely Southwest, Jetblue, Ryanair, that are smiling, partly because the message has got through to staff that if the company does well, we all do well.
I also hear that the government in NZ is about to stop the student loan scheme for trainee pilots. Bit tough for the individuals, but better that than be offered cheap money to get into an industry that is not really what you thought it was.
Maybe some the flying schools will have to reduce their orders for their shiny new trainers, again tough on those concerned, but market forces have to catch up with them.


I liked the idea of the Guild in principle. We all know that fragmentation is the enemy of a union, association, federation or whatever. But all these groups to date have only represented a small portion of the big picture, and as Rongotai pointed out, they have never worked together. As an employee group, we are totally fragmented, and while we mess about in our own back yard, the rest of the street is getting shabbier and shabbier, and before we know it, the value of the entire neighbourhood has plummeted.
It is increasingly a global market that we work in, the borders and barriers are dissapearing daily, we don't we think of the big picture. But the excec's do.
OK, IFALPA has existed supposedly for this purpose, but it is still made up of its member groups who are in it to look afetr their own patch.
The concept of a guild intrigues me, completely non partisan, transcending all the boundaries lumping us all in one big bucket.

Dont know how the hell it would work though! (Actually sounds a bit like communism!!)

[Spad]

410, the letter from your old Training Captain illustrates a point that some might miss – that the good times in this industry have come and gone within one pilot’s working life. I’m assuming your mate is 60, so he was born around 1943, which would have had him starting in the industry around 1961, (as he stated) getting his first airline job in ’65, which would have had him as a senior captain in ’89, but only 46 years old. I’m assuming he didn’t go back to work for AN after 89, so he, like the overwhelming majority of the pilots of his age and experience, would have seen the last fourteen years out with one of the overseas airlines.

So really, the good old days really didn’t last more than twenty years… except for the heroic ‘Few’ in AN who managed to squeeze another twelve years out of it, and the ones in QF Domestic who continue to do so, but at what cost to the rest of their colleagues within the industry, particularly the younger ones, who they so effectively sold down the river for their own short term gain.

I hope everyone bemoaning the current state of the industry is beginning to see the vital part those heroes played in screwing the careers of everyone else. And don’t waffle on about how it was inevitable – there were faint hearts within the ranks on every occasion Dick Holt organised industrial action back in the 60’s and 70’s, but none of them scabbed. The faint hearts and opportunists in 89 did, and if they hadn’t, the companies and the pilots’ elected union representatives would have come a compromise agreement, as they’d always done before, with neither side winning nor losing outright.

It could have been all so different, ands we could still have had what amounted to the Guild people are now talking about, except for the despicable actions of the ‘heroes’.

[VB_Capt]

What you have to realize mate is that youre dealing with human nature. I screwed up by not going back. What happened in 89 has happened in every industry all over the world including Australia. Its happening right now in other industries in this country. Does anybody give a s**t? No. People are getting sacked for not working harder for less. People need jobs and to eat and they will go after that. F**k their mates. What can their mates provide? They come and go throughout life. Your mates won't pay your bills or educate your kids.
Human nature dictates that we look after ourselves first. If you re in great danger your mates might help but only so long as it doesn't put them in the firing line. If it does, they're off.
Its human nature to look after yourself first. Got it.
The young guys were sold down the river by the old guys who had nothing to lose and everuything to gain. Jobs overseas, big super payouts etc. It was easy for them to be strong but bail out early. Who let the side down? I reckon those who took off early. Didn't they look after themselves first?
As for 410s story about the bank clerk, I was a young bank clerk in the mid 60s and my wage was four pouonds rten and sixpence a week ($9.05) so that shoots down the 28 quid story Maybe he went in as a manager.

[Snowballs]

Australian Financial Review 20.09.03

Knock, knock
Marcus Priest
How unions are getting attention

By taking a page out of the Amway training manual, some unions are seeing membership go through the roof.
It is very rare for workers at the dusty mining camps in outback Queensland to see any unfamiliar faces at the bus stop to the mine site first thing in the morning. So back in May the stranger stood out. The unexpected visitor turned out to be a union official trying to sign up new members.
“You normally know if they are a worker because they are in fluoro orange with fluorescent stripes for mining, but Bernie was just there in his blue CFMFU shirt.” said Coppabella mining worker Fiona O’Brien.
O’Brien and her mates work for mining contractor, Roche Mining, which operates Coppabella coal mine in North Queensland for Macarthur Coal.
Like many contracting companies, union membership at Roche was low — below 10 per cent — and O’Brien was initially hostile to the approaches by Bernie Farrelly from the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union.
“I was a little bit rude to him,” admits O’Brien. I said ‘Look I’m not interested in the union’”.
But within four months membership had soared spectacularly to over 60 per cent and O’Brien is now a CFMEU delegate and sounds like a true believer. The story demonstrates how union recruitment strategies are changing. The increased tendency for companies to take contract labour has decimated union membership for the likes of the CFMEU. Now they are fighting back with missionary zeal — door knocking, cold calling, pamphleteering, and working friends and family to sell the gospel of unionism to non-unionists.
And, as at Coppahella, they are succeeding, and on two fronts. Not only are they rebuilding membership in old union strongholds but they are making headway in new industries.
At Moet in regional Victoria. the Community Public Sector Union has gone from zero union
membership at a all centre run
by TeleTech, to over half the workforce, using similar tactics to the CFMFU at Coppabella. Yet as they pull the members in the front door, unions must also fight a rearguard action. Their
existing membership base continues to be threatened by companies restructuring workplaces, offering redundancies and preferring to contract out their labour.
The sectors with the greatest decrease in union membership finance, manufacturing, mining and communications — have concurrently had the largest increases in casual employees. In a three-year period between 1999 and 2002, communication sector union membership declined from 48 percent to 32 per cent, mining declined from 35 per cent to 29 per cent, manufacturing declined from 32 per cent to 27 per cent, and finance declined from 27 per cent to 18 per tent.
At Qantas, union membership has always been high — close to 100 per cent — but even there, unions are fighting the threat of outsourcing and pressure to increase the number of fixed term and casual workers. It’s a battle many Qantas workers feel they are losing.
Two weeks ago, unions in the Qantas engineering division held a weekend meeting in one of the workshops at Sydney Airport to update their members about management’s continuing moves to outsource maintenance and fitouts to a company in Victoria. It was the first time workers in the division had met since a round of redundancies had scythed through the workplace early in August. One worker could not believe the shrinkage
Four to five years ago, the shed would have been completely full, now the total number of workers wouldn’t have even been one third of the number of sheet metal workers we used to have, said the engineer who has worked at Qantas for 15 years.
Everyone was just looking around and took stock of how few of us were left.”
Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon has outlined plans to have 25 per cent of the company’s workforce made up of casual, labour hire and part-time workers. But he has denied any intention to “casualise” the workforce. Instead this will come through natural attrition and employment growth when the aviation sector picks up
But Dixon’s bottom line is that he wants a non-standard workforce to cater for the peaks and troughs of demand. Earlier this week, members of the Transport Workers Union rejected a deal with Qantas which would have placed tight limits on the way in which they could employ non-standard workers, because it involved signing on to a public deal which would have handed Qantas a huge symbolic victory against unions in the battle to use non-standard labour in Australia From 1984 to 2002, casual employment increased from 16 per cent of employees to 27 per cent, with greatest numbers of casuals in retail (45 per cent) and hospitality (56 per cent). In the same period, the use of labour hire has increased rapidly, especially among larger businesses. In 2001, 160,000 worked for labour hire companies.
Even the companies earning their living from contracting out have themselves begun to contra out their own staff.
Faced with a downturn in the communications infrastructure Sector two years ago, one of Australia’s largest labour hire companies Skilled Engineering. cut its number of permanent employees by offering them the opportunity to become subcontractors to Skilled.
Said Skilled chief operating officer Greg Hargrave: We needed to variabilise our fixed cost base.’’
Australian Centre forr Industrial Relations Research and Training (Acirrt) deputy director John Buchanan translates this as passing the risk, obligations and burden of an employment relationship on to an employee.
It is the ability to discard bits and pieces of the conventional obligations of the employer role that renders fixed-term employment casual employment and dependent contractors attractive to many employers,” Buchanan and his colleagues at Acirrt say in their book Fragmented Futures.
The only sector which has maintained stable union membership while seeing a large increase in the number of casuals is construction Between 1999 and 2002. it remained around 25 per cent to 26 per cent. Yet even in the construction sector casuals made up a third of all workers.
Among the reasons that construction unions have remained so strong is their ability to negotiate industry-wide conditions through so-called “pattern agreements” rather than negotiating genuine enterprise agreements. Critics argue pattern agreements drive up labour costs and are inflexible. And many of the agreements require employers to only use subcontractors which have deals with unions.
This is why a key objective of the legislation for the construction industry released this week by Workplace Relations Minister, Tony Abbott is aimed at preventing pattern agreements and practices which may be considered to be anti-competitive. The commonwealth code of practice in the industry also requires companies not to have agreements with unions that force the employer to use subcontractors with union agreements if they are to win commonwealth funding.
‘‘The nature of the industry means that the existing remedies against pattern bargaining don’t work, Abbott said this week.
“The whole problem is that the construction industry is unique. All of the things which operate in other industries to ensure that the workers get a fair go and the owner-managers get a fair go tend to be absent because it doesn’t have equally matched employers and unions and it doesn’t have a culture of give and take.”
The kind of industry-wide negotiations that construction unions have is the envy of unions in other sectors. In the communications sector, unions have only just managed to achieve an industry-wide award setting of minimum conditions in the contract call centre industry. Those unions are now attempting to rope individual contract call centres into that award.
The award capped off a successful 18 months for unions in the call centre industry. Union membership in call centres started at a negligible level.
But grassroots union drives by the Community Public Sector Union and the Australian Services Union has now given them a strong foothold in some call centres
For her recruitment campaign at a TeleTech call centre in Moe, Victoria, the CPSUs Gail Drummond won the ACTU’s Organiser of the Year Award. Moe is symbolic of the challenges that now confront unions: it was formerly a strong union town with workers in the mining and power industries. But with closures in those industries union membership plummeted.
But in 12 months, Drummond built the membership at TeleTech from zero to 50 per cent, She achieved it through an approach straight from the Amway training manual.
“We look after Centrelink, ASIC, ATO and other agencies, and I had been in contact with our delegates there and asked if they had friends family who worked in the call centre and we did get a few contacts through that way.
‘‘The people who I got in contact with then arranged meetings in their homes and bought along non-members.
Drummond and her colleagues also searched electoral records to find the addresses of the people she had been told worked at TeleTech. They then went and doorknocked those people.
According to Drummond, the union now has TeleTech running scared.
“They don’t know what we have got or how many we have got’’ says Drummond,
TeleTech may not admit to being scared but they do say they are angry.
“We have had 35 written complaints about tactics used and it being an invasion of privacy,’’ a TeleTech spokeswoman said. “We think it is an inappropriate tactic.’’
Drummond says, that she is doing no more than using publicly available information to contact people. Ironically that is exactly what call centres often do.