QF Group Ground Handling Cuts
 

Jetstar is terminating 370 employees in a move to outsource 100% of their ground handling function. Qantas will go through a 'bid' process with internal and external groups for ground handling across Australia.

https://www.afr.com/companies/transp...0200825-p55p3o

https://www.smh.com.au/business/comp...25-p55p3l.html

It's pretty much what happened with Catering a few years back. Those jobs are outsourced and are technically not part of the group, which means the official headcount of employees reduces, but those people are still doing the same work for a new outsourcing provider.

Not exactly. Qantas sold their catering business (what remained) to Dnata. The Cairns and Sydney units to Gate Gourmet back in 2012.

This is a case of outsourcing versus insourcing. This enables competitive labour pricing pressure and greater workforce flexibility without the liabilities Qantas retains today. Whilst many of these workers will secure new roles at third-party handlers - not all will. And for now - most of them won't. What will be interesting is how much 'productivity' will be relinquished by the current in-house teams in order to avoid outsourcing to third-parties. That will be very interesting as I am sure the QF award is more favourable than say a Swissport or Menzies etc. But I don't know...

Ask any Dnata/snapfresh worker how happy they are being ineligible for jobkeeper as its foreign owned.

It’s the Tiger model. Outsource every single thing aside Pilots. Even Tiger went down the path of contract Cabin Crew via third party operators however ended in tears.

Swissport have plenty of Tiger Airbus equipment laying around.

From what I have witnessed outsourcing ground staff never really works and results in many unintended problems as a result. I am sure it's cheaper on paper though.

I know afew AeroNOcare staff, and they were treated so badly turnover rate was ridiculous. Same with Swissport, Oceania or whatever they're called now. Basically if you don't like it, leave. Promotions, good shifts and management positions for mates only.

Hoping AF keeps us in-house at JFK. We're the last of the foreign carriers at JFK to do so.

Why don't they outsource Joyce?

labour pricing pressure & workforce flexibility really works so well!!,lets take the aged care sector as an example,what can go wrong.

Very few will want to stay on as Swissport, who in their right mind goes from full time hitting $100-120k/year to casual making $22/hr on 3 hour shifts. All ground crew knew this would happen eventually.

There will certainly be plenty of tears along the way for Qantas. If you’re ever flying on a Friday night or Sunday make sure you don’t pack a bag because you’ll be waiting awhile.

Swissport will be rubbing their hands together with this one and VA will follow suit shortly and all ramp services in all Australian airports will be provided by third party contractors.

Sad day for those involved they will go from a heavily unionised workforce loading a 737 with 6 people on $100k a year each and great staff travel benefits to loading it with 3 people on a good day, being paid $60k each full time with no benefits and greatly reduced rostering benefits.

This will be a tough pill to swallow but likely was going to happen over the next 5-10 years anyway. COVID/19 has simply accelerated the process, provided justification and prompted QF and JQ to act in this exceptionally rare time there will be minimal operational impact.

if this was attempted outside of COVID the staff would have walked off the job by now with airports severely disrupted. The unions will be furious that’s a lot of their hardcore members gone.

100k a year for how many hrs a week?,not 38 i can tell u.
Maybe you would like to elaborate on the great staff travel benefits too?
Standby only with low priority,that does seen great,doesnt it!

Sure there are a few full time rampies pulling big bucks, but the vast majority of new hires for at least the last 5-10 years were already employed by a subsidiary, Qantas Ground Services.
This led to a workforce predominantly guaranteed 20h/week and salary generally equal to or in some cases, less than the ground handling companies they compete with.
Trying to break free from these conditions was an aim of the last EBA negotiations.
So i'm not sure how much $$ they will save on staff, but perhaps capital expenses.. if they have to buy 50 new tugs over the next few years I think they can easily get to $250K each.

Minimum casual wage is $24.80 per hour.

Based on the full time hourly rate of $19.84 with a 25% loading.

https://www.fairwork.gov.au/how-we-w.../minimum-wages


Because "they" benchmark management packages against New York and London but the workers wages against Mumbai and Dhaka.

Maybe they are factoring in the saving from reduced worker’s compensation claims, it’s rumoured the costs of this alone are huge.

Having worked for both QGS and Aerocare I can promise you QGS will pay about double over a fortnight with plenty of time on your arse to watch football, play cards, study, whatever.

Pre-covid plenty of QGS part timers hitting 70-90k, it’s significantly more than many other blue collar type full time jobs. A QAL full timer doing zero overtime will hit 80k, with sickies, LSL, 20th days, DILs and annual leave they only work 40 weeks a year.

On compo, for QAL it is self insured and the rorts are truly impressive. Smash out the overtime for 3 months pick your ailment of choice, tell Doc it hurts when you drive and stay home for 6 months doing whatever.

Normally covered by the obligatory insurance not the employer.

https://www.fairwork.gov.au/leave/workers-compensation

It's the way of doing business, max profits for the smallest outlay! Airlines exist to make money, they are not there to make everyone happy or doing it for fun!

From a simple back of the envelope calculation: if outsourcing 2500 jobs will save $100M/year, then they think they can get they equivalent job done for $40,000 less per employee.

Now, if Patty speaks the truth, it could be that simple. But I doubt Patty speaks for the majority of ground staff. That would be like saying “all pilots earn $400K! Surely we can outsource pilots for half that!”

The fact that Tino/Alan actually did threaten something similar to their pilots just 8 months ago hasn’t escaped me, but I digress.

Given that you wouldn’t be likely to be able to shave $40K off an average cleaner’s wage and expect them to re-apply to the contracting mob, there must be some fat in there somewhere that we’re missing.

The only clue I’ve found so far was actually in clear sight in the press release: it “includes management roles”.

Ahh.