Merged: Qantas Engineers Set to Strike
 

Monday, May 05, 2008


Qantas engineers are planning a series of 48-hour strikes in their campaign for better pay.
Despite fare increases and a record profit year predicted Qantas has refused to improve on a pay offer of 3percent.
The Australian Licensed Engineers Association has begun balloting members and industrial action will probably start in two weeks.
"Our members feel an offer of 3 per cent isn't good enough when inflation is running at 4.2 per cent," said association federal president Paul Cousins.
Qantas CEO Geoff Dixon said, "At a time of record and escalating fuel prices and major disruptions in the industry, Qantas will not move from its stated 3 per cent pay increase and 1 per cent super."
Qantas is expected to announce a record $1.5 billion profit in a couple of months, up 40 per cent on the previous year.
The airline has also increased international and domestic fares by 3 per cent and 3.5 percent respectively. Those rises mean a $100 increase on a return trip to London and $8 on a one-way fare to Melbourne.
Fuel costs are soaring but the airline has bought much of this year's fuel on favourable fixed contracts. It has said it will absorb the higher costs by cutting expenditure and putting a freeze on hiring.
Mr Cousins said if engineers voted in favour of industrial action it would begin almost as soon as the ballot closed on May 18 with a series of four-hour stoppages.
"We will try to keep disruption to a minimum but it will inevitably lead to delays because there is a shortage of engineers."
Mr Cousins claimed Qantas had contracted an employment agency to hire engineers on extremely favourable short-term contracts to break the strike.
Qantas passengers should be prepared from delays to their flights due to the strikes.

I understand that the vote results are now in - 81% in favour of industrial action. :D

Good luck to you guys, you deserve far more, am rooting for you all, well maybe not quite thinking about you at a personal time!:E

CW:ok:

Hang on......... are you male or female?

Lambs to the slaughter.

capt wally... have one for me (it's a dry patch)
go engineers, plenty of the cc support you even if it does stuff up some flying. geuss the schedulers for techies and cc will make lots of o/t

exactly what i was thinking, you will get nothing above 3.0 % and a lot of lost income from strike action.....

lets just bend over and accept a substandard offer then eh ? :ok:

Good for you Engineers, well done and go for it.

There is a huge global shortage of qualified engineers (as bad if not worse than that for pilots). QF have treated you appallingly for too long.

There are too many naysaying whimps around like seldomfixit and ultralights who no doubt whine like stuck pigs when they don't get their own way but don't do anything collectively to fix it. 'Lambs to the slaughter' my arse, what have you guys got to lose? Worse case scenario everybody gets sacked - then what? Somebody still has to maintain the aircraft.

There are too few engineers and many, many jobs. Basic supply and demand. You should thus be rewarded accordingly and it's about time you were (and stood up for yourselves).

Just look what the Victorian school teachers have achieved by being tough and united. Unlike us pilots who are the biggest bunch of self-serving whiners unable to work cohesively and collectively even at this historic time of flight-cancelling aircrew shortages.:rolleyes:

Good luck to you.

What was GD's pay rises over the last few years????
Can Geoff spell hypocrite?
If not, here you go geoff:
hyp·o·crite Audio Help /ˈhɪpəkrɪt/ Pronunciation Key -
–noun 1. a person who pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, esp. a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
2. a person who feigns some desirable or publicly approved attitude, esp. one whose private life, opinions, or statements belie his or her public statements.

Well is about bloody time you guys stood up for yourselves! QF has tried to keep you down too long!
You should have walked out when you said you would earlier on in the year instead of waiting and hoping managers would give you what you want.
The lower amount you take the higher the bonus's are further up the chain.
If they are going to re hire the people they made redundant to come back and work for a VERY good rate wouldn't it be easier to just divy up that money to the engineers at work?
I hope you guys actualy stick this one out, we as engineers have been troden on enough its time to make a stand!!
Also where are they gonna find enough contractors to do the work its not like they grow on trees

United
 

Stay focused, stay determined and above all stay united. Don't let the b###ards drive a wedge into you. Look at what the teachers and cab drivers did in Victoria recently and you know you can succeed. Good luck to the lot of you - you deserve it.

Go for it Guys-

and I speak on behalf of PAF (pass a frozo) who is also behind you guys 100%

:E

I expect the baggage handlers will soon follow :8

Yes, shut down the whole :mad: lot and history, like 89; will repeat itself. Good luck.

I am not sure that 89 would actually be repeated, this time the CEO is not well regarded in many circles. No mate of the PMs, no mate of the public either.

There are also the ghosts of Allco - (a "sell/avoid" stock) - might be a bit harder to shake from the collective memory than expected.

Good luck Ginger Beers!

Good luck
 

Good luck with it, I wish you all well with your endeavour.

I hope as a group you see a lot more intelligence and forethought than we did at j* during the fiasco that was the EBA negotiation. Thankfully in your favour you don't have our negotiating "team".

We will all be watching and waiting :ok:

Go for it guys.

Expect some heavy pressure from a long planned and carefully orchestrated propaganda campaign, even in this forum.

Good luck, hang tough.

Obscene profits need to be shared with those who helped create them, not just the ivory tower trough-gobbling monkeys, (who wouldn't know work if it bit them on the :mad:.)

Al e Vator, I spent 11 yrs battling QF for better pay, all we ever got was 3%, i left in 2001, and all they have ever received since is 3%.. i left for much greener pastures, i am now earning $25K pa More than i did at QF, for doing exactly the same job. without shift work, and working 4 day weeks..

nothing has changed from 3 % and it never will. sadly i wish this wasn't the case...

Good luck guys, hope you get want you want, Buuuuut do you think you could make it the following week as I am going to a wedding in London, and fly out on the 16th (perhaps not) and as I am going staff travel?????? and as I am giving away the bride.......um, could be a little difficult..but good luck anyway.:bored::bored:

teresa.......hmmmmm
its all about you!
how about you buy a full fare ticket!:mad:
I think the engineers struggle has precedent.:eek:

absolutely amazing how people are willing to support them as long as it doesn't inconvenience them!

In my case boys if you go out, I will lose pay and be totally disrupted, but its worth it for your cause I do support YOU.

The whole maintenance system is struggling to keep up, with OT running full throttle and delays ever growing, QF management are can't let the airline stop for 2 hrs let alone 2 days.
But don't expect them to back down until the last minute, this is going to be the worst medicine that GD has ever tasted and he's going to be awfully pissed off when he does.
The 3% barrier must be broken for the good of all the hard working QF workers.

Pundit. If you are going to post, please post fact, rather than a media cut and paste that spreads fear and uncertainty to other QF staff and travelling public etc. It does not help

The LAME had a secret ballot through the AEC for Protected Industrial Action. The results are as below.

Members are advised that the Australian Electoral Commission have now declared the
result of the protected action ballot. The results are -
Yes 993 No 226 Invalid 1 In favour 81.39 %
Percentage of Persons on Roll who Voted 81.14 %

As I am aware there are NO plans for 48-Hour strikes.!!
There are plans for Overtime bans starting next week period. see below
On any calendar day that a member is not rostered for regular duty for any part of that
day, no overtime will be performed by that member. This Protected Industrial Action
will continue until further notice

Within the PIA document, there are provisions to include bans on higher duties and or secondment and 48- hour stop work meetings.

So for the near future there are no strikes planned but allot can change in a week especially when dealing with QF


teresa green I think you will be fine as the bans won't start to delay INT flights for a few days.

Well why don't they pay them the money and get on with life. If it costs less to give them the money then have the fight with them, well give it too them.

Oh ! I forgot, GD is a prick ! It's not about the money anymore is it?:zzz:

This was sent to me by a mate on the Qantas pilots Union regarding their EBA negotiations,


" The precedent has been set. How quickly people forget that 3% suits where it suits and as in the Jetstar pilots case it doesn't. Remember the Jetstar pilots just signed a deal backdated to the 1st Jan 08(due to expire Sept 08) that gave the "token" 3% but also 6% retention bonus and 6% at risk performance bonus(at the board's discretion) based on Jetstar's financial performance. This is the bottom line we should accept."



I've also been told that it is rumoured that the Qantas execs gave themselves a $100 Million bonus at the beginning of the year in order to get it in before all the poor economic figures started coming out.
That might be worth confirming as well !

http://www.thewest.com.au/aapstory.a...oryName=481229

Can I suggest you split the difference - 4% pay rise - pretty close to inflation?

QANTAS are into the media spin already with quotes like

'All quite laughable considering what transpired with the Allco bid, what management stood to make out of it and the fact the company is sitting on about $2b cash. Plus then theres the fuel surcharge, ticket price increases, late penalties for the 787 and mooted $1.5b profit.....

What was the increase in profit over the previous half year? 101%.....

................................“We will not break our wages policy of three per cent annual pay increases and a one per cent additional superannuation contribution, as we reinvest our profits in aircraft purchase AND BOARD EXECS WAGES/BONUSES to continue to grow Qantas in difficult times.”

That's more like the truth, this guy couldn't lie straight in bed !:yuk:



CW

PAF of the 2,000 odd posts you've made on this site have any of them actually not been management or company supportive ?
You sound like a first rate FUD spreader and company puppet, that is if your name is not Geoff ? :eek:
How about you do as one of your earlier posts stated and just stay out of Ginger beer discussions as you have nothing constructive to contribute

How does Geoff Dixon know when we are having stop work meetings?:confused:

As far as I was aware the ALAEA hadnt set any days in concrete,as we are just starting with O/T bans.And that is on our days off!!!!!!!

Does this mean the company is planning to stand people down on those 2 particular days to cause the LAMEs to walk off the job? Sounds like they are inciting industrial action.The "workforce-in-waiting" must have finished all their training early.

Hopefully the media are aware that it is Qantas escalating the industrial action on these two Fridays and not the ALAEA.:=

re: Cartexchange's comment...

For god's sake woman get a sense of humour. The mind boggles....

Let them get me the chop Frozo (read Bozo) I'll take my licence were it pays more! With respect to 89 - I was there as well, nobody wanted the pilots to resign - just bad advice from their union. We intend to work inside the system and use the policy manual (red tape dispenser) to its full effect.:ok:

Cartexchange, fair crack of the whip fella, I wished you well, and as the father of a LAME I agree with what you are doing. As for me going staff travel, after neally fifty years of service in TAA and QF you could hardly deny me a 10% seat. I am sure you use staff travel when you can. I am simply saying its bad luck for me if you pull the plug next thurs. Ok?

Be Careful
 

Mendaero, be careful - you guys may get a lot more than you've bargained for:sad:
From experience I can say that the Association will drop you like a hot rock if things go pear-shaped mate.
Lots of guys out there who will be happy to take your job.:=

Dont you people on the 3rd floor have anything better to do than troll on these websites. Get back to work. If you dont have any work, then come downstairs and help us out. We are the people working on those big white things with the red tails.

PAF
 

You're a dill.

It;s called Protected Industrial Action.


If you care to read the thread in D&G G.A & Q's you would understand that pound for pound the QF engineers are worse off than many other airline employed engineers in AUS eg VB & JQ and the 3% p.a offer sees many at QF going even further backwards against CPI, i.e less disposable income after paying the mortgage feeding and educating the kids etc not to mention the ever increasing demands from the employer for productivity increases, technology upgrades and the like.

Lets see them give us all the arse, I know you won't have the ability to fill the void!:=

QF almost sold to to Allco/APA et al, not buying a new (proven) LH Fleet years earlier, payments to Exces at record amounts each year and Geoff Dick says greater than 3% pay rise to the Engineers is a threat to QF's future...:confused:

Chronic Snoozer
Out come the arm chair quarter backs. Gee I am sure the ALAEA will be grateful for your insightful advice. Mate you should run for office at our next association election... :ok:


Snollygoster. Great first post, thank you too for your input.

The PIA in progress now has been brewing for a long long time and has more to do with the current ACS management style than an EBA.

If you look at both PIA votes you will see all but the most reserved and fans of PAFs writings voted for the action. Obviously something is very wrong for such a high vote turn out yet alone the majority vote.
I for one considered the ramifications of our actions and I am more than willing to stand by my convictions. Come hell or high water lets see where the cards fall. :ok:
Murray caused this lets see him wriggle out of it.

PAF. Love you work, predictable but good reading all the same but I fail to see the correlation to the 89 dispute. And I do enjoy reading about Jim and Debbie’s travels…

Everyone's entitled to an opinion, sir. The numbers just happened to pop out at me as I read the public news item so it was really more a tongue in cheek observation. :oh: I work for a recalcitrant employer too and don't envy the task the gingerbeers face, not a bit. Good luck.

Good onya engineers, just stick it to Dixon. This guys been itching to bust Qantas unions from day one, whilst lining his pockets with the money earned by those same staff ie union members..his greed and that of QF management is breathtaking!