Strike breakers
 

I understand that a leading european crewing company is having meetings with "the nudist" over the next few days to discuss the supply of strike breakers.

Stay tuned.......

Strikes are different these days.. not the traditional type of stop work.

Maybe the unions /workers could get their point across more effectively to mgmt after all attempts at talking have failed if strikes were like in days gone by, stop work style, and in our industry, planes parked and only the birds flying.

well, if they're dealing with the nudist we'll have no problems at all :}

Legalities of Pilot Strike Breakers
 

I was just pondering this morning after reading another thread, is it even possible to have pilot strike breakers come from external contracting firms?

If they came directly in to a company during a strike they wouldn't be route qualified, so wouldn't really be legally allowed to fly those sectors (if my interpretation of the CAO's is correct) and I'm sure that the unions would have cause to be upset if a bunch of contractors would start showing up and taking up C&T time to get route qualified.

I know some of this happened back in the 80's, but not entirely sure of what ended up happening, so thought I'd pose the question. :)

Wasn't a problem for the airlines in 1989-90.

Suggest you search for a few threads on the Dispute and form your own opinion. Mind you, you will need to wade through a lot of diatribe but the story is reasonably easy to tease out.

The Government makes and, therefore, can remake the rules to suit the need of the day. Some of the things done in 89-90 were nothing short of disgraceful.

I shudder to think of the consequences for the Qantas pilots contemplating significant industrial action in the present marketplace.

Understand this was looked into yesterday in the meeting between the Irish and the Nudist.

Biggles is correct. The rules will simply be varied. Remember the current minister is an avowed enemy of pilots after the flight deck access 'victory' last year.

The strike breakers will be paid huge amounts of money. Plenty of furloughed yanks (in particular) who have 'form' in this area.

AIPA is aware of the problem, and has it built in to its strategy.

I can't see them using strikebreakers, the public doesn't have much tolerance for this type of tactic anymore, this is basically why we have protected industrial action, it protects both sides. Qantas would just transfer everyone onto their "codeshare" partners anyway....and they have another airline that is the "star" of the group that they can use in asia and domestically to reduce inconvenience.

The Govt did rule out foreign labour during the last engineers dispute in 2008.

Strike could ground Qantas | The Australian

Bottom line is its going to cost the company LARGE amounts of $$$$$$$$
for any strikebreakers. :ouch:
Not good when the company is making wafer thin profits and crying poor
at the state of their business and how tough things are. :{
Reckless spending is out of control let alone the fines they are getting !!
If they don't try and protect the bottom line then I'm calling that a sub $2.00 share price will be seen soon. :(

For strikebreakers to be effective... there has to be a strike.

One would hope in the current climate at the airline that if the Strike Breakers were called in the Aircraft would not be signed out, the baggage would not be loaded, and the TWU might take an interest as well.

Read Capt Kremin's comment. Prevent history repeating itself.

Terrey......Hope has nought to do with it.

ANCDU you have a lot to learn!
The public couldn't care less if strike breakers work, because when it comes down to the line they live by the bugger-you-jack principle.
"I want to go on day X don't stuff up my plans".
Twenty years ago no one cared... why will they change now?
The government soon changed the rules to chop off the pilot's heads ... same party again.

Wouldn't matter what party was in. The public perception is that pilots are a privileged group of overpayed,glorified bus drivers. No sympathy means no one cares so the government at the time will do whatever it takes to win votes!
Nothing has changed. As has been mentioned on another thread, you have to organise a PR exercise and secure public support when threatening industrial action or else...................well, the duck season opened sometime last month!

In the LAME dispute of 2008 we faced this same problem. A company was opened up called Newport Aviation and started recruiting. They were restricted to Aussies who could work without 457 visas. The contracts were for 6 months, $60K for the period paid fortnightly and a $40K bonus on completion of the full term. A healthy sum for a LAME of $200k per year.

Of course we had some mates sign up to feed us back the info from the inside. Becasue of this we kept on faking our attacks to make sure Newport weren't called upon until after they had already engaged the guys for 6 months. They had to sign them all up for a second term before they had even stepped foot on a tarmac.

They had about 60 guys. Before the real action had even started, they had blown $6 million. AIPA will be aware of exactly what is going on with any strikebreakers as we are this time also.

Some of my mates pocketed the 100k and walked away without leaving home. I look forward to the free beer.

you'd better call in Brian McCarthy. He'll lead you to the promised land...:hmm:

What's the law in 2011 WRT secondary boycotts?

QF management will have to buy the necessary politicians in
order to successfully screw its pilots like AN management did
in 89. They'd only need one or two to be effective and keep the
unions in check (anyone remember that bloody Kelty?)

Be of no doubt whatsoever that scabs (oh dear, can they be
called that under the Oz PC nazi rules?) will come flocking in
from overseas, attracted to the high salaries that'll be given,
as well as the current strength of the AUD. The silver bodgie
and the fat man ensured DOT (I think its called CASA now)
issued Oz ATPLs to those dregs of dubious safety and ability.
Cigar smoke permeated DOT for a year or two after that to ensure
the scabs stayed put if they wanted to remain in the so-called
lucky country (I've never forgotten how the "regulatory body"
permitted its standards to be lowered for political reasons. I like
rubbing their grubby little noses in it from time to time when they
try coming the raw prawn, and I have no doubt they would do it
again when instructed to by their ALP masters).

Of course the Fat Man-orchestrated 89 event never had to happen
- AN/TN/QF pilots knew it, I knew it, Jimmy Bow Tie knew it, Feds
knew it, the media knew it, Trades Hall knew it, all except your
average knuckle-dragging ALP-voting d!ckhead in the street who
wanted pilots to be dragged down several pegs under the Cutting
Tall Poppies syndrome (a disease I believe still permeates down
there). Be of no doubt it will happen again if there is a next time.

One certainty anyone can bank on is the gullibility of the Oz public
in believing anything written in a newspaper, especially anything
written by "editorials" or "respected journos" in a form that "makes
sense". Even though News Corp have nothing to do with QF as far
as I know, if AIPA try anything they'd better really consider how
the political machinations of the Oz media operates above all else.

Lastly, its a no-brainer that Joyce is intent on dragging QF Mainline
down to the same mickey mouse standard of the domestics (or lower
if that's possible), and that :mad:hole won't give up without a hard
fight.

Secondary boycott provisions leave little room but I'm sure that there are dozens of ways things can be made difficult - procedure queries, discretionary stuff like the CC not calling for boarding while any Eng's/Caterers are doing anything etc etc - that would at the very least slow things down. I could also imagine the SMS and the likes of Repcon would be flooded with reports.

The real sad thing however is that after all the EBA stuff is signed and settled - it's a long way along a path of broken glass to restore trust/partnership.

Unfortunately with the little bloke still struggling to see over the top of his wallet and constantly crying poor/foul there is little faith or integrity. Added to that the inflamatory factually incorrect nonsense from the scaggy witch of worthless PR and the whole thing is a mess.

What's more with that magic $2 line getting even closer and must be almost at the point where the institutionals start putting real pressure on.

For all the unions involved the mandate is to be 200% professional and stand firm. The race to the bottom for the moment has been overtaken by the need for a dysfunctional Mgrs, Exec & Board to come up with the goods. The real power will be for the Unions to keep AJ & Co on the edge of the cliff looking down at the valley of failure for as long as possible.

The rules of the EBA game should have been the first agreement.

AT