Alan Jones/2GB/Qantas
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Alan Jones/2GB/Qantas
Just heard him this morning at 0650 parroting on about Qantas pilots/cabin crew, ground staff and engineers taking industrial action against the company. The company PR people are on the job, its all about increased fuel costs and competion and we will lose our jobs. Nothing about fuel hedging, strong $Aus, wrong aircraft, no network, giving Aussie jobs away or inept management. Is it possible for a parrot to be a goose?
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From Professor Bamber at Monash Uni
The looming confrontation between Qantas and its pilots, engineers and baggage handlers could easily become Australia’s most dramatic industrial conflict since the waterfront dispute of 1998. But it seems that some of the parties involved are not considering solutions available to ensure these disputes don’t develop into a full-blown crisis.
Rather than holding constructive talks, they appear to be making public inflammatory comments in a series of heated exchanges. In the latest salvo, Qantas chief Alan Joyce publicly condemned unions' “kamikaze campaign” on wages, describing their talk of industrial action as “throwing oil on the fire”.
Union leaders have previously criticised senior managers as “hard-line”, accusing them of trashing the Qantas brand while awarding themselves huge pay increases while denying modest pay increases and job security to workers.
Qantas and the unions need to adopt long-term, cultural changes to their industrial relations regime if the parties are to avoid costly disputes that destroy shareholder value, put jobs at risk and endanger Qantas' corporate reputation.
Qantas could learn from the experience of US-based Southwest Airlines, which has worked hard to foster good relations between managers, employees and unions and has become one of the most successful airlines in the world.
Navigating forward
At 90 years old, Qantas is one of the most successful “legacy” airlines in the world.
Legacy airlines generally reflect militaristic traditions of command-and-control. But partly because of this highly adversarial approach, legacy airlines like Qantas seem not to find it easy to achieve trust and high productivity from their workers.
Adding to this tension is a tendency to outsource, restructure and cut employment costs – highlighted in Qantas’s recent move to base staff overseas and outsource some maintenance work.
This reflects Qantas’s aim to cut costs in the face of rising fuel prices and tougher competition, but has left groups of Qantas staff concerned about their pay and job security.
The Southwest solution
In contrast, Southwest – a much younger airline – has developed a constructive management culture that strongly values the views and interests of its employees.
Southwest was founded in 1971 in Texas. Like Qantas, Southwest it is heavily unionised, with 88% of employees paying union dues.
Nevertheless, Southwest adopts management strategies based on fostering partnerships, mutuality and staff engagement.
By 2007, Southwest had become the largest airline in the world by total number of passengers carried per year and it has been continually profitable since it was founded.
This is unusual in the airline industry, which often faces much turbulence, currently from rising fuel costs.
Southwest attributes much of this success to its constructive relationship with its staff and the unions.
The airline holds quarterly briefings with unions when its profits are reported and according to management, aims to treat its staff like “family”.
Employees are treated more as a source of value, rather than as a cost. Consequently, it has never retrenched any of its workers.
The airline allows employees to choose their own representatives at company meetings and respects the legitimacy of the union.
Business logic
In Up in the Air, our book on the airline industry, a Southwest executive explained the business logic behind the company’s management style.
“Our people know what the airline industry environment is like,“ the executive said. "I am confident they will do what it takes to keep Southwest on top. I would consider it a failure if we have to go to our employees and tell them to take a pay cut.”
Southwest generally works through difficult issues in a form of joint problem-solving, in partnership with the workforce rather than via public slanging matches and threatening industrial disputes.
While many airlines have tried to copy aspects of productivity-enhancing innovations pioneered by Southwest – such as the fast turn-around of planes – its industrial-relations strategies have not become commonplace.
But this does not mean that Qantas cannot transform its management and industrial-relations strategy.
After a period of much turbulence in the US, another large old legacy airline, Continental, succeeded in transforming its previously troubled management and industrial relations in the 1990s.
The adversaries at the Flying Kangaroo could learn much from the constructive dialogue, cooperative approaches and mutual-gains-style negotiations that Southwest managers and unions adopt – and from Continental’s transformation.
As they confront big issues, such learning would be in the interests of all the Qantas stakeholders – including investors, workers and the customers.
Rather than holding constructive talks, they appear to be making public inflammatory comments in a series of heated exchanges. In the latest salvo, Qantas chief Alan Joyce publicly condemned unions' “kamikaze campaign” on wages, describing their talk of industrial action as “throwing oil on the fire”.
Union leaders have previously criticised senior managers as “hard-line”, accusing them of trashing the Qantas brand while awarding themselves huge pay increases while denying modest pay increases and job security to workers.
Qantas and the unions need to adopt long-term, cultural changes to their industrial relations regime if the parties are to avoid costly disputes that destroy shareholder value, put jobs at risk and endanger Qantas' corporate reputation.
Qantas could learn from the experience of US-based Southwest Airlines, which has worked hard to foster good relations between managers, employees and unions and has become one of the most successful airlines in the world.
Navigating forward
At 90 years old, Qantas is one of the most successful “legacy” airlines in the world.
Legacy airlines generally reflect militaristic traditions of command-and-control. But partly because of this highly adversarial approach, legacy airlines like Qantas seem not to find it easy to achieve trust and high productivity from their workers.
Adding to this tension is a tendency to outsource, restructure and cut employment costs – highlighted in Qantas’s recent move to base staff overseas and outsource some maintenance work.
This reflects Qantas’s aim to cut costs in the face of rising fuel prices and tougher competition, but has left groups of Qantas staff concerned about their pay and job security.
The Southwest solution
In contrast, Southwest – a much younger airline – has developed a constructive management culture that strongly values the views and interests of its employees.
Southwest was founded in 1971 in Texas. Like Qantas, Southwest it is heavily unionised, with 88% of employees paying union dues.
Nevertheless, Southwest adopts management strategies based on fostering partnerships, mutuality and staff engagement.
By 2007, Southwest had become the largest airline in the world by total number of passengers carried per year and it has been continually profitable since it was founded.
This is unusual in the airline industry, which often faces much turbulence, currently from rising fuel costs.
Southwest attributes much of this success to its constructive relationship with its staff and the unions.
The airline holds quarterly briefings with unions when its profits are reported and according to management, aims to treat its staff like “family”.
Employees are treated more as a source of value, rather than as a cost. Consequently, it has never retrenched any of its workers.
The airline allows employees to choose their own representatives at company meetings and respects the legitimacy of the union.
Business logic
In Up in the Air, our book on the airline industry, a Southwest executive explained the business logic behind the company’s management style.
“Our people know what the airline industry environment is like,“ the executive said. "I am confident they will do what it takes to keep Southwest on top. I would consider it a failure if we have to go to our employees and tell them to take a pay cut.”
Southwest generally works through difficult issues in a form of joint problem-solving, in partnership with the workforce rather than via public slanging matches and threatening industrial disputes.
While many airlines have tried to copy aspects of productivity-enhancing innovations pioneered by Southwest – such as the fast turn-around of planes – its industrial-relations strategies have not become commonplace.
But this does not mean that Qantas cannot transform its management and industrial-relations strategy.
After a period of much turbulence in the US, another large old legacy airline, Continental, succeeded in transforming its previously troubled management and industrial relations in the 1990s.
The adversaries at the Flying Kangaroo could learn much from the constructive dialogue, cooperative approaches and mutual-gains-style negotiations that Southwest managers and unions adopt – and from Continental’s transformation.
As they confront big issues, such learning would be in the interests of all the Qantas stakeholders – including investors, workers and the customers.
Bottums Up
I had the honour of working for a small Brisbane based regional in the early 90's that had the same ethos as I imagine Southwest's to be. We were all colleagues and there was no us & them mentality.
Crew requests were almost always accommodated, not with reluctance but in the knowledge that the crew would give back. One task towards the end of the company's life had a Captain & I drive Brisbane to Bundy in a rented 1 tonner, collect a crated PT6, drive to Tamworth where the ginger-beer's fitted the engine, then ferry the aircraft back to Bundy.
I doubt you'd find too many airlines today, where crew would do that. It'd be a case of "I'm a pilot not a delivery driver". But in the above example, the company looked after us and we looked after them.
Crew requests were almost always accommodated, not with reluctance but in the knowledge that the crew would give back. One task towards the end of the company's life had a Captain & I drive Brisbane to Bundy in a rented 1 tonner, collect a crated PT6, drive to Tamworth where the ginger-beer's fitted the engine, then ferry the aircraft back to Bundy.
I doubt you'd find too many airlines today, where crew would do that. It'd be a case of "I'm a pilot not a delivery driver". But in the above example, the company looked after us and we looked after them.
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The problem is Alan Joyce is nothing like Gordon Bethune - there is no way Qantas can be turned around like Contential was unless management makes a real effort to improve the organisation's culture.
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its very difficult to en still a sense of honour and humility( and common sense) such as that management and EMPLOYEES at carriers in the US like SWA and CO have ....to here in australia...where QF and JQ have invented aviation.....everybody will "f**k you to get ahead and position themselves for the kill.....Culture!!!!!!....mmmmm they have it................ we don't 
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The problem is Alan Joyce is nothing like Gordon Bethune - there is no way Qantas can be turned around like Contential was unless management makes a real effort to improve the organisation's culture.
So what would would it take to move QF from its current culture, to one similar to SW over the next five years?
If you were in AJ,sposition what would you do?
How would you start the transformation? (realistic options please)
If you were in AJ,sposition what would you do?
How would you start the transformation? (realistic options please)
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How would you start the transformation? (realistic options please)
Also, stop spitting in the staff in the press. Look at why people are disatisfied - money is nice, but it alone doesn't motivate everyone to perform at their best (Southwest, Continental and even Virgin are examples of this). I think staff are looking for respect from their leader, not riches.
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I'd stop p1ssing in the pockets of the union leaders, some of us can see through it. I know our union would love to have a good working relationship with the company that employs the majority of our members. I just find it hard when I walk around with all those knives in my back.
Alan, if you want to make a change that we don't like, just tell us, stop trying to implement change in an underhanded way.
You could also get rid of the tools in middle management.
Alan, if you want to make a change that we don't like, just tell us, stop trying to implement change in an underhanded way.
You could also get rid of the tools in middle management.
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Alan was a full paying pax after his radio cash for comment stint... He hasn't flown with QF recently though.. 2009 or early 10 was the last time. Used to fly First Class of course. Sing Air probably got his business as well now.
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So did anyone get on the dog and seek to put Mr Jones to rights?
That's what happens in politics - one pollie gets air time, the other side has a bunch of 'callers' jamming the switchboards to pepper the victim with questions. Even if questions aren't put, lots of calls block the board and at least part of the message gets across.
See what would happen if any union boss were to be invited onto the show...
Has a press release been sent to Jones, picking apart / refuting each point in turn, with objective evidence?
That's what happens in politics - one pollie gets air time, the other side has a bunch of 'callers' jamming the switchboards to pepper the victim with questions. Even if questions aren't put, lots of calls block the board and at least part of the message gets across.
See what would happen if any union boss were to be invited onto the show...
Has a press release been sent to Jones, picking apart / refuting each point in turn, with objective evidence?
