1989- Pilots dispute 19 years on

[airsupport]

I agree with you 100%, but some people just keep bringing it up.

[john_tullamarine]

nomorecatering

We can say naught other than to express our empathy. More than a few families were hurt by suicides associated with the fallout from 1989. I'm sure that all of us who had an involvement can recall one or more of these folk.

but we can't change the past.

True .. but, like any important aspect of history .. it can be forgotten .. then only to be repeated somewhere down the track. If not forgotten, then those who come after .. need not make the same mistakes, perhaps ?

[gaunty]

john_t.

Touche mon ami.

I had no direct involvement, but my stomach still turns over when I see the little Silver bodgie, but it settles down with a little (actually a lot) of our patent medicine.

[Pinky the pilot]

like any important aspect of history .. it can be forgotten .. then only to be repeated somewhere down the track. If not forgotten, then those who come after .. need not make the same mistakes, perhaps ?

Indeed, john_tullamarine. I forget who said

Those whom do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it

but they are truly wise words.

[Wiley]

I've been asked about 1989 by a number of people over the years, (but not recently, because most people today who weren't directly involved don't even remember it). I spoke to a 20-something Australian male flight attendant recently who grew up in Gladstone Park (right next door to Melbourne Airport). He asked me why I wasn't flying in Australia and when I mentioned 1989, he didn't have a clue what I was talking about.

The comment that's come to serve me best is "Until you're involved in something like that yourself, you'll never understand. Hope and pray you'll never understand."




...as for the comment about how "selfish" the pilots were for resigning when they were told it was the only way to protect their homes and superannuation from being grabbed by Abeles and Jimmy Bow Tie... (Whilst accepting that in hindsight, it was p**spoor legal advice), what can you say in reply to someone who rails on against that? Like I said: "Until you're involved in something like that yourself, you'll never understand."

[Knumb Knuts]

Speakeasy

The current crop of juniors flogging the airways in flat bottomed jets might be better off had it not been for the "few" who thought they knew better than the union at the time. That includes the QF babies who think they invented flying.
Most posts on wages and conditions bleat about tough they are doing, while Dicko lead by TT pays himself $6.5 million.
History will repeat itself sooner or later, and the juniors will be leading from a lower base than existed in '89.
And the 89er's are not the "few" who thought they knew better than the union, they are the decent pilots and their families who demonstrated what real industrial courage is despite the horror of seeing their careers get passed off to opportunists foreign and domestic. Abeles is dead. Hawke is not far behind on age alone

[Hoofharted]

Good-grief I'm tired of this sh1t being dragged out of the sewer.

[Teal]

For those too young to remember, or for those with hazy memories (or selective amnesia), the following link provides an account of the dispute by an ex-Ansett pilot:

http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/aviation/pd89_introduction.htm

[Spad]

Am I the olny one who finds himself wondering about the career path of someone who makes comments like

Good-grief I'm tired of this sh1t being dragged out of the sewer.

?

Anyone who can't see the direct correlation between 1989 and the current management attempts - apparently successful - to import cheaper foreign pilots into Jet* and Rex has either "no imagination or selective amnesia".

Prior to August 1989, there was a real union in place that would have put a stop to such things before they got off the ground - to everyone's benefit (except the cheap foreign labour and the 'lower costs at any cost' management).

[blue belly]

all I asked was if anyone was planning anything...

Many have strong feelings still either way and I am sure there are those still ashamed to show there faces in public.

I am proud of my decision 19 years ago and that I stood for my principles, good to have freinds all around the world and in Oz, more importantly walk down the street looking people straight in the eyes!

[Anulus Filler]

It would have been much better if you had PPRUNE 20 years ago.

[HIALS]

It's amazing to cast our minds back to 89 - and realise there was no internet (as a public utility), no email, no mobile phones (as we know the system now).

What a massive difference the internet alone would have made.

I am convinced that one of the greatest disadvantages the pilots and their union had, was their inability to disseminate their point of view. Their opponents had the biggest propoganda machine (Hawke Government) and publicity machine (Murdoch Media) available. The public were provided with a very one-sided storyline.

A point proven by the insistence of a previous poster that there was a 'strike'. The mis-information continues to this day. And, I guess in some way that's why the issue isn't dead and buried.

[teresa green]

I was there big time. I am sorry it happened it did not need to. It cost me a lot, friends, family separations, but on the plus side it gave my family and myself a chance to live in another country (Belgium) and experience another way of life. It taught my kids how to speak another language, and and gave them a different way of looking at the world. On the minus side I made it too late to say goodbye to my father, it cost me a heap of money, and most of all it caused me to become bitter. On a recent flight back to OZ I came across a grey haired bloke wearing two stripes, we both bowed our heads at one another, there was no need to speak, we both knew the story. If it did nothing else it started enterprise bargaining for the future aircrews, but it was a hell of a price to pay. Amen.

[FGD135]

As one who was just starting his flying career in 1989, I ask:

What lessons are there to be learned from 1989, and have they been learned?

[Capt Wally]

Mankind never learns from it's mistakes. Why? because we are driven by a desire to seek more.




CW

[7x7]

What lessons are there to be learned from 1989, and have they been learned

Certainly by the airline companies, judging by the way they've so sucessfully divided and conquered the pilot group in the years since - and how they've so successfully ground down terms and conditions to the horrible state they are for most today.

However, judging by the many "not this old boring subject again" comments you see here on Pprune, not too many lessons have been learned by the pilots who have come into the industry in its wake. Possibly because many of them were given a rather one-sided, self-serving version of events by the aptly named "heroes" who returned or blew into the industry post '89.

[Eastwest Loco]

In my case, I will once again remember months of being home for 36 hours a week while trying to hold the Hobart operation together after our route agent Philomenas Travel went tits up at the worst possible time. Delightful female that one - NOT!

I will remember the good people a Hadleys Hotel, who became my external family and always made sure the Marty Zuccho Pizza was there in 20 minutes with the six pack of VB.

Also I will remember the good mates I lost when they decided to not return for what they believed was a just cause.

The thing I remember most is my hate for the the fat dude and the bodgie, for the decimaction they caused within the ranks of my friends for their own sorry and pointless gain. One is dead, the other deserves to be.

I am sorry, but the manipulation of people I really cared about for ones own gain does not garner one tiny bit of favour with me.

God bless you all - on both sides. Heroes and scabs are not true titles and should never be used. Dreamers and Realists are more acceptable, as neither group was really wrong. The picture cards had been taken out of the deck before the first hand was dealt.

The only problem was the manipulation from above.

At least one of those involved is now below. I will have a beer when the other departs.

Best all

EWL

[FlexibleResponse]

A union was simply trying to improve the lot of its members by seeking improved salary and benefits.

Would any of the dramatic consequences have happened without the personal interference of the Silver Budgie (Bodgie?)?

(I ask this question as an outsider looking in.)

[john_tullamarine]

It would have been much better if you had PPRUNE 20 years ago.

As inferred by several ... had we had this wonderful tool back then, the situation would have been managed quite differently.

As we all observed, disinformation was rife throughout .. from both sides (and disgracefully so). The dispute made it so clear why, in war, communication and dissemination of information is the first thing to be controlled.

The AFAP had a very useful, and well used, phone hookup system .. but nothing like the power which PPRuNe offers.

.. which is why, I guess, that many airline managements (and others) hate PPRuNe with a vengeance ...

our patent medicine

salut !

[tinpis]

I wonder.... who would have supported pilots by way of public internet forum?

I recall a certain talk back jock exhorting pilots to hurry get back and sign contracts