1989- Pilots dispute 19 years on

[Capt Wally]

was there ever a 'checkmate' in the game? No just two losers
Will be interesting when the 20 yr milestone comes up, will we be any smarter?


CW

[Conscious.pilate]

Back to posts 31 & 32

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

and

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.

There was a dial-up bulletin board as I recall; a precursor of the internet.
It had the newsletters, information and even a "naughty list".
Not may had computers let alone modems way back then.

[Blue Sky Baron]

History repeating itself???

As someone who did not fully understand the events of 19 years ago at the time, I thought it was time I did a little research to more fully comprehend what really transpired and followed the link on post #28 of this thread and am reading the account as told by the author, Alex Patterson.
Assuming this account as written resembles a fair representation of what transpired I can't help but see many similarities with the current wage claim being made by our engineering friends.
I wonder is GD reading his plays from the "Abeles book of Aviation Management"?
Lets hope this time a healthy resolution can be achieved without the pain and suffering experienced almost 2 decades ago.

BSB

[tinpis]

Was a certain "section" of Alex Pattersons web snipped ?

[milkybarkid]

Try http://www.vision.net.au/~apaterson/ and read the whole site.

The raw facts seem reasonable but written from the perspective of someone too emotionally involved.

For example there was a list of those who helped the airlines but no list of those who remained true to the Feds.

Imagine a history of Scientology written by Tom Cruise.

[FGD135]

Imagine a history of Scientology written by Tom Cruise.

I too read the Paterson account and found it to be horrendously biased - which is a great shame considering how useful a document it could have been.

[Hoofharted]

ACMS your self-centred arrogance would appear to know no bounds. Your assertion that you lost more than me because you lost an airline job and I lost merely a "GA" job is a clear and concise illustration of the selfish pr1ck that you are.

So what if my employment was only "GA", it was still my only job and source of income. You lot had a choice, you CHOSE it, I did not. And further more you lot expected to "come down" to GA when you lost, expecting us new starters to just disappear. By what right do you believe that your need for employment was more important than mine. Your posts merely prove the complete and utter self-serving arrogance that pervaded the industry at the time.

While I agree that Hawk was a narcissistic hypocrite and prostituted himself in this affair (and what politician doesn't), your mindset beggars belief! You believe that by "divine right" all and sundry should have made way for you and your mates in order that you could achieve your own personal ambitions. Pilots, small business and any one alse you care to mention around the world had to give up their own aspirations in order to make way for yours. So this time around it's "bugger you" mate, you got what you chose, live with. Oh and a small dose of humility probably wouldn't go astray.

[Stationair8]

What are Alex and Chris Paterson doing these days, still in the flying business?

[blueside^]

Traffic controllers after 63% pay rise

Speaking of the dispute, does http://au.news.yahoo.com/080607/2/176f7.html ring any bells?

29.47 x 2 + 0.137767220902612826603325415677

[Teal]

Was a certain "section" of Alex Pattersons web snipped ?

Unless I'm mistaken, I seem to recall that several years ago there was still a 'list' on his website.

I too read the Paterson account and found it to be horrendously biased

Quite understandable considering the likely financial and emotional impact on him at the time. You wouldn't be human if you didn't feel some degree of anger and bitterness about the whole affair. Look at post #66 about Brooksbank.

[teresa green]

I think it is a interesting note that this very day,and after what we are discussing that the Air Traffic Controllers are asking $60,000 (30,000 more than us), as a wage increase. I say goodluck to them, I hope they get it, I am sure I would be extremely dead without them, as would most of you, but my point is we started enterprise bargaining, (whether we knew it or not) and ironically there will be little fuss, just the usual tooing and frooing until a settlement is agreed upon. Not for us. We were called "glorified Bus Drivers" Hawke was out to protect his mate "the fat man" Keating told one of our reps that "we will get you bastards if it is the last thing we do" they would not negotiate, at all, they shafted us big time, and yes we walked right into it. Bigtime. But we (babes in the wood that we were) believed in democracy, that we would get a fair go, that we could negotiate, we did not imagine that Hawke would make it so personal, because of his mate. If you think back, Hawke's beloved wharfies could ask what they wanted, anytime, and hold up the wharves and bring the country to its knees whenever thay wanted, no sweat, it was never our intention to hurt other people, and we were appalled at the outcome. Most of us if we had our time over again would sure as hell, go another route, and miss the CAT, but perhaps when the last one of us is in a box and doing our last circuit, the aircrews of today and tomorrow can enjoy enterprise bargaining at our expense, perhaps it had to happen. Now does anyone know how much beer you need to drink to P@ss for fifthteen minutes. All I ask that I outlive Hawke so I can attend his graveside with the rest of my mates, and I aint going to bring any gladiolies.

[Mach E Avelli]

Hoofharted, hear hear! G.A. jocks were threatened with dire consequences if they scabbed. Many did not. I recall some AFAP heavies visiting an aero club where a CPL course was about to graduate and putting the fear of God into the youngsters. I recall a senior jet Captain hogging the left seat of a Chieftain, yet his super payout had to be in the order of over two hundred grand, which was a lot of money back then. I recall one sad f..k lining up at Ansett six months into it for annual reissue of his uniform, only to be told he didn't work there any more because the records showed he had resigned.

[A37575]

It's a long time ago but I clearly remember talking to a GA colleague who was over the moon about getting a 737 slot with Australian Airlines. He and a couple of mates had only been in the airline for a couple of weeks and was on a type rating course when an AFAP rep dropped by to say a friendly hello to the class. Rather like hello I'm from CASA and I am here to help you etc. His words were something like "Gooday - I'm Captain Joe Blow your local Federation rep - now you don't have to join the Federation, BUT if you don't join you don't fly...."

Two weeks later my friend was out of a job and back where he started in GA...

[Fantome]

What's the go with those minutes taken at the PM's Lodge in Canberra where the PM called in the airline heads to work out the strategy to cripple the AFAP? That meeting was held months before August '89 and has been called the conspiracy that set the whole disaster in concrete. The minute taker evidently leaked them to the AFAP but the legal advice was they were not admissible as evidence. (Was it Phil McConnell who had a handle on this subject?)

One of the "Pattersons' Curse" boys moved back to Tasmania, gave the flying away and concentrated on studying philosophy. (Same fella mounted a very effective campaign that revealed lethal spray drift from ag planes working the fields alongside the town of Forth. Would have been early '80s.)

[TopTup]

Best way to make something bleed is to keep the wound as open as you can with a dull, jagged, rusty knife.

[Binoculars]

Good grief, I find myself agreeing with Ralph the Bong.

When emotions that deep are involved, no one wants to listen to reasoned argument that puts your deeply held convictions into doubt.

I have come to enjoy reading Wiley's usually erudite posts on various subjects but surely he must have felt a certain degree of irony when posting the above comment? His follow-up post suggests he pleads guilty.

I also confess to a wry grin when I read

Imagine a history of Scientology written by Tom Cruise.

A very apt description of Mr Patterson's site.

Does Kaptin M's original thread about 1989 still exist anywhere in the archives? If so it should be freely available for all new aviators to read to get some sort of understanding of the level of passion involved on both sides. One of the best and most useful threads ever on Pprune in my opinion, even if at least half the posts developed into abuse and repetition. In fact, the whole thread could accurately have been described by Wiley's quote highlighted above.

I had friends on both sides of the dispute, understood and sympathised with both positions, and never took a specific side except to mention that as a lifelong gambler I accept my losing bets as my own fault. I do the research, form my own opinion of the odds and compare that to what is being offered.

The pilots were somehow persuaded by what turned out to be very poor advice that they should resign. The pilots took their chance and lost. Many have been seeking to blame somebody, anybody else ever since.

It's also my belief that had they not enjoyed such a position of power in the duopoly for so many years, and not seen themselves as a special breed, their pleas for assistance from the ACTU may have met with a more sympathetic response. Like the AMA, the overriding political belief in the workforce was, and to some extent still remains so inherently conservative that it would have been fair to sum it up as union thugs were ruining the country, but their union was different.

In the end, somebody called their bluff. The hatred that engendered is still evident in this thread.

[halas]

Doing my usual walk around of Troughton Island after breakfast, l came across another fellow walking toward me. We stopped and introduced ourselves and turned out he was an 89er. This was January 1990, before 89er's had even been invented. He was working for Air N@#th and l for LL%*d's.

Before l could say what a nice day, he had spilled so much hate and venom on to the beach and even managed to threaten me about joining up with the big4! That's when l discovered that he was one of the fellows that took two mates of mine their job on a turbine.

This may not seem much today but back then the pay difference was huge and the foreseen progression became an in-your-face recession.

In Ll%*ds too we had these imposers take away commands, and most were only short term, but long enough to make many retrenched (even though they were junior on the seniority-list but with obvious higher qualifications), like me. I didn't resign, l was laid off.

I don't blame them individually, as they used what machinations they could to make ends meet. But the displacement of so many meant others lower on the food chain did without. And all with no recourse to climb the tree and improve their lot due to the threat of being shot down.

Who won out of that scenario?

I don't think about it too much these days except when this airline in the "pit" had 89ers making sure the airline didn't hire any "heroes".
Well now the filters are removed and many from the other side are here.

Must be interesting on a check ride when one meets the other.

halas

[FO Cokebottle]

Oz BS

Gents,

A couple of Beers under the belt after a 14 hour sector - but seriorsly, the only way to escape the post 89 induced vision (Hawke Keating, Abeles, et.al) is to have left the shores and become an expat.

You know - in Australia....you're going to be f@#ked over

That is my opinion...for what it is worth

[Knumb Knuts]

YepandYada

If you embark on a game of chess with somebody, who then beats you, you don't then hate that person for the next 20 years do you?

When you embark on a game of Chess, it is reasonable to assume your opponent is not using Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knifgts and Rooks in every square below the centreline, while you are endowed with only pawns.

As for Dick and his ad., and Buck, Dick's ad. was aimed at the public. It was well intentioned but long and in fine print, and probably few of Joe Public read beyond the first few lines of the larger print. Abeles and Bodgie Boy couldn't have cared less.

Buck's advice was listened to, but the endorsed leadership, and it WAS endorsed by the pilots, did what was demanded of them, and I'm NOT speaking of August 1989, but for at least two years before. Remember the Feb '89 meeting in the Coburg Town Hall - All the warnings of how tough it would be were presented - one character verbosely enouraged all to support the charge, then was the first to S*+b, when the vote was taken, there was one against any action (AND he didn't s+^b), and seven abstentions - all of them CC's.

It is hindsight with a capital H to suggest something other than what occurred should have been done. If that idea was so good, the means to implement it was in the hands of -guess who -the pilots.

For some, it was easier to scab. Especially when 43% pay rise was flagged in your face.

[Mach E Avelli]

Although there were quite a few airspace incidents when the foreign pilots came in on 'quickie' licence conversions, some of the guys they replaced were not aces either.
One guy I recall was in the habit of having a long and serious conversation with his instruments as he taxied out, even though his new employer had told him the policy was only to respond to checklist items, usually with just one or two words. He got so engrossed with his 'turning left skidding right' b/s that he dropped the main gear off the side of the runway. Another ex-astronaut type left the cabin doors open in monsoonal rain. When they powered up, everything in the cabin shorted out due to water in the hostie panel. His theory was to get to altitude and once it dried out in the rarified atmosphere, reset the blown circuit breakers. The ensuing smoke got everyone's attention, including the chief pilot's.
Yet another guy simply could not fly a circling approach. At night he was positively scary. Too many years of SYD-MEL in his A300. Two I met had serious booze problems, but whether it was old habit or the dispute that dunnit, I have no idea.
To their credit, many that went overseas did lift standards in places that sure needed it. But they often took on a Jekyll and Hyde persona - professional at work, vitriolic in the pub. Expats would go out of their way to avoid drinking with Aussie pilots.