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.

The purpose running a business is run a business in that field. Accountants don’t get that - they get bonuses. Zero vision. Outsource enough and the business ceases to exist in anything but name and a bank account.

I think you’ve over-simplified it.

If, pre-COVID, Alan had made ALL 2500 ground staff redundant and effectively hired most of them back through contracting companies, whether these companies were owned by Qantas or not, he would have been highly in breach of Australian workplace law. Qantas would have been taken to court, and lost. There is plenty of case law for this. (Yes, the equivalent can be legally achieved over time through a thousand cuts, but not in a case lot like this).

He is doing it now, presumably on the basis that these people don’t have “useful work” anyway. So he has, effectively, found a loophole that he can capitalise on, free of litigation. In the “crisis”, he has discovered something to his advantage that he never would have been able to do otherwise.

The Australian concept of “stand-down”, which was only intended for a short-term stoppage, is gathering new consequences daily. This move is not in the spirit of “keeping jobs” as publicly advertised by Alan. This move is an opportunistic “don’t waste a crisis” kick in the guts for all Qantas staff, and I hope the TWU expose him for it in the media. I actually thought he was doing well until now.

I doubt that many of them earn over 40k a year,if u took 40k off them they may end up with $100 a week if they were lucky.
1 of them told me they were basically no worse off on jobkeeper,the work they do is not appreciated.

This is why you're a banana and not a board member. Alans doing a great job saving the company money. Like it or not, a unionised legacy workforce is expensive. (Sickies, staff travel, allowances, penalty rates...dry cleaning!) There is a never ending crowd of keen young people willing to do their job for half the $. Their enthusiasm usually burns out after 6-12months, ready for the next batch.

I haven't worked in that area for quite a while, but Patty's estimate is close to what I would've have estimated for base wage plus penalty rates for a full timer. If there are more than one or two people earning an extra 20k due to overtime, is that the workers fault or it is bad management?

........and the predictable result will be a massive increase in lost, stolen damaged and late baggage. That will produce enough reputational damage to offset any savings. However since the reputation bit isn’t quantified in accounts, it will look like a saving.

There are immense productivity gains to be made. Even when they eventually get back to full schedule the 2500 jobs will be replaced by 1800.

Swissport will do 737s with 4 rather than 5 man teams. You won’t have guys doing 3 35 minute turnarounds in 8 hours like you do now. Or 2 guys loading a nearly empty morning flight while 3 have a sleep. No more rocking up hungover at 5 and the boys letting you sleep until 7.

There are plenty of legacy conditions that will be done away with, the TWU EBA has allowances for everything. All breaks are currently paid, that will be gone. The penalty rate structure is completely different. Overtime goes on a weekly basis rather than after an 8 hour shift.

QAL managers currently each have about 25 people underneath them. There are additional supervisors and there are workforce planing. All will go and be replaced by a handful of supervisors.

The GSE mechanics will mostly go. All the bus drivers and bus mechanics.

Very easy to see how they will get their $100m in savings.

Never ceases to amaze me the amount of workers who subscribe to this notion, whilst it is not their job that is affected.

Well, sooner or later, they will come for everyone.

Of course that theory seems to stop at senior management levels when suddenly we need "experience" and "we have to pay market rates to attract the right talent" and people who are made redundant have roles created for them out of thin air.

Reality is the same game could be played with CEO and senior managers if boards wanted to get serious. The issue however is that once you get into senior levels of any corporation it tends to be a bit of a closed shop and very much on who your mates are and who is going to support you politically.

Just as the former CEO of QF International just found out. Live by the sword, die by the sword.

Sick leave: legislated
Staff travel: money making exercise, get rid of it if you like.
Allowances: feel free to roll a lesser amount in to base pay - but they don't want to pay the super
Penalty rates: Fair Work sets the "normal" hours of work, see the retail award etc. Only someone who hasn't had their sleep patterns disrupted long-term would have a problem with this
Dry cleaning: outrageous!

Outsourced madness
 

I think this is AJ's way of getting rid of the TWU - who are a PITA as far as management are concerned. I assume that this also means the demise of the old Qantas Transport team - those who used to do the crew transfers QCC to airside and return, plus tech crew home transport? (Showing my age now).

Used to be that Ground handling was a very profitable part of the Qantas Airports 'division' - recall many times costing up bids for other airlines handling at SYD International. Critical issue was when you had an AOG close to the curfew, you had your own staff to handle the pax to hotels exercise (and return). TWU used to be rostered until 0100, so the staff was on hand. A certain accountant put paid to that and it only took several weeks before the late LAX departure went tech. So due to Flight time limitations, new crew to be called out and the service was a no-go. The pax had to shuffled off to hotels etc, but the TWU pulled the 'sorry no overtime' and shot through when the shift was due to finish. Took an eternity for the pax to get to their hotels, only to be waken up for a 0600 departure. Would like to have been a fly on the wall as the (few) management did the bags, organised the transfers and hotels, Plus did all the rebookings for the displaced pax. And our American brethren were SO accommodating and flexible in their requests! Heard through the grapevine the overall 'impact' was in excess of $100k and that was in the early 90's.

Seems they never learn about the full outsource model - no 'ownership', no loyalty, and in the end it hurts your business. Ask PanAm and TWA.

Well cutting all the call centres down to minimal staff has led to people being on hold for hours on end....and these are the premium passengers. Of course a lot of things can't be done online but other carriers can manage it. Call centres were under resourced and customers were angry- looks at some of the stories on Facebook and you shake your head. But management don't care because they have saved so much closing call centres in Hobart. So reputation only matters when it suits.....money talks

Never let a crisis go to waste, the prospect of a 40% discount on future ground handling and not having the unions squeezing his nuts must have been too much to resist for AJ. The idea of simply picking the lowest tender instead of negotiating with militant union leaders just prior to the peak travel season would be very appealing.

If it was cheaper to have ground handling in house, then other airlines would be doing it rather than outsourcing. Whilst there are undeniable advantages to having your own people, these are obviously outweighed by the disadvantages and higher cost.

Baggage handlers at QF are paid considerably more than similar workers in comparable jobs outside of the airline, and it’s only because of the disruption they are capable of causing rather than supply and demand.

FIFO workers on the mines are very well paid because that is what it takes to have people away from their families for 2 - 3 weeks at a stretch doing 12 hour shifts in the outback. I saw a job for a grader driver in the Pilbara recently, 3 weeks on 1 week off, 12 hours shifts at $65 an hour plus super. Comes out at +$200 000 a year, which is more than most F/Os make and not too far off junior narrow body Captain rates, if anyone wants a career change

Words of wisdom here.......... 👍

Just a crazy fact off topic, if you double the QF job losses and double the VA job losses add them together you get 19000 job losses. Thats what AA just announced.
Could not fathom this 12 months ago never mind right now. Just beyond belief.

Would love to know where you get your facts from,early morning flights were basically always full,check the schedules & you will see there was a flight to syd every 15mins,airlines dont run at that frequency if no pax on board.
Coming in hungover at 5am,are you serious!!,the drug & alcohol policy is so strict it makes your claim an insult.
And 3 flights in 8 hours,makes me really wonder where you got this info from.
If they want to use 4 instead of 5 to load a 737,so be it,see how long it takes to load 120 bags & freight/mail also.
As for paid breaks,that is because they are shift workers!
It seems you think these guys get it easy,try doing their work on 38+c days & no,im not 1 of them.

I'd take Joyce over Borgetti or any other current Airline CEO any day of the week. I wasn't a fan but like Warren Buffet once said "Only when the tides goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked" and boy Qantas
has been shown to be one of the very few airlines to have been wearing shorts, not acknowledging Joyce as responsible would be disingenuous. Its a tough business for our nations airlines to compete in a world were 3 middles eastern
carriers have flooded the market with their subsidized business models. People here will not like to hear it but we have to admit he is a brilliant strategist.

Whilst I too would never say being CEO is easy, Joyce did enjoy having only to deal with one poorly run competitor domestically (Virgin). I believe domestic is where the majority of Qantas profits were made in the last few years.

The Emirates code share proved he wasn't too keen on making a go of international, but then the project sunrise fiasco came along. Too little too late and mostly a PR stunt. He didn't have to compete with the ME3 going to Asia or the USA, just LHR mostly and he fixed that with a soul crushing 17.5 hour direct from Perth.

He also likes to fake huge losses (asset write offs) and then the following year be hailed aviation god by posting a profit.

Now whether this qualifies you as either a great CEO or great b#lls@it artist the jury is still out for me.

Difficult shoes to fill

https://cimg6.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....2a39b262fb.jpg

That is true, like the empty car factories and industrial sheds, Australians is screwed while the rich get richer.