Merged: QANTAS/ALAEA EBA
The Reverend
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Plus there is no comparison between engineers and pilots. We work for a living
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: waterfall
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QUOTE
'Plus there is no comparison between engineers and pilots. We work for a living'
a VERY unfortunate phrase, we all wear QANTAS on our hearts and we are all in this together. Every single QF employee is important, from the blokes and girls who wash the planes up to the planners, fliers, gingerbeers, - everyone keeps the planes in the sky and the pax happy - but would we notice if the
were gone???
'Plus there is no comparison between engineers and pilots. We work for a living'
a VERY unfortunate phrase, we all wear QANTAS on our hearts and we are all in this together. Every single QF employee is important, from the blokes and girls who wash the planes up to the planners, fliers, gingerbeers, - everyone keeps the planes in the sky and the pax happy - but would we notice if the
were gone???
Join Date: Jul 2008
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Fedsec,
As one of the LAME's that has recently been accused of walking off the job over the w/end by CH 7 news, several radio stations and written media outlets, I do NOT understand how this can be said/written. No media personnel contacted myself or any of my crew to determine if this was true.
We arrived at work last night and were confronted with these media lies. All of us knew that we had worked exceptionally hard and professionally during the shifts in question, (following ALL the QF procedures designed to make our jobs more difficult), and we definitely did NOT walk off the job!
My crew has been defamed, and after this has taken place QF management/QF Shareholders/travelling public/Oz Govt just expect us to give 100% again when we next show up to work. Well we did! That is because we are professional and take our job of maintaining aircraft VERY seriously!
Be assured WE DID NOT DO THIS FOR QANTAS BECAUSE QANTAS IN ITS CURRENT STATE DOES NOT DESERVE TO SURVIVE!
An apology is owed to us from the "source" that told media personnel that we walked off the job. Stretching of the truth is one thing, TOTAL lies is another!
As one of the LAME's that has recently been accused of walking off the job over the w/end by CH 7 news, several radio stations and written media outlets, I do NOT understand how this can be said/written. No media personnel contacted myself or any of my crew to determine if this was true.
We arrived at work last night and were confronted with these media lies. All of us knew that we had worked exceptionally hard and professionally during the shifts in question, (following ALL the QF procedures designed to make our jobs more difficult), and we definitely did NOT walk off the job!
My crew has been defamed, and after this has taken place QF management/QF Shareholders/travelling public/Oz Govt just expect us to give 100% again when we next show up to work. Well we did! That is because we are professional and take our job of maintaining aircraft VERY seriously!
Be assured WE DID NOT DO THIS FOR QANTAS BECAUSE QANTAS IN ITS CURRENT STATE DOES NOT DESERVE TO SURVIVE!
An apology is owed to us from the "source" that told media personnel that we walked off the job. Stretching of the truth is one thing, TOTAL lies is another!
Moderator
1me. Very observant!! 
Your post count has increased as a consequence last nights "little disturbance". This thread is now duplicated in the PPRuNe Mod's Administration Forum, which you can't see but in effect your post numbers have increased by the number of posts you made in this thread up to last night.
I see this post is # 3,600!! It is a very large thread even by PPRuNe standards.
Tail Wheel
Your post count has increased as a consequence last nights "little disturbance". This thread is now duplicated in the PPRuNe Mod's Administration Forum, which you can't see but in effect your post numbers have increased by the number of posts you made in this thread up to last night.
I see this post is # 3,600!! It is a very large thread even by PPRuNe standards.
Tail Wheel
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wheelsandbrakes
It's all part of the 'BIG BUDGET' buggery campaign, don't let it bother you.
You know the truth and that's all that matters.
stand strong, you and your crew are proffesional, as all LAME's & AME's are!
UNITED WE STAND!!
It's all part of the 'BIG BUDGET' buggery campaign, don't let it bother you.
You know the truth and that's all that matters.
stand strong, you and your crew are proffesional, as all LAME's & AME's are!
UNITED WE STAND!!
Join Date: Apr 2008
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Glad to see you leave being cancelled once again. What about leave without pay? They cant cancel that can they? Why don't you all put in a leave form and all have a week holiday. Surely there is nothing they can do about it? I am glad I left Qantas and actually earning more and enjoying life even more since leaving QF.
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Open Letter To The Travelling Public
Anyone flying Qantas recently would have a good chance of suffering delays and cancellations. I would like to apologise on behalf of the engineers for the delays caused by our “go slow campaign”, but I can’t. Because it is not true. I can however, apologise on behalf of Qantas for the lies of a few who slander the 1,500 engineers who have been working harder than they ever have to keep aircraft flying safely.
Someone in Qantas management has authorised the distribution of letters and notes to affected passengers accusing us of a “go slow campaign”. The truth is that we are not working overtime on our days off, and we are fully complying with the policies and procedures written by Qantas Engineering management, which actually adds to our workload.
Unfortunately, Qantas Engineering has become overstretched. The last few years has seen the closure of Sydney Heavy Maintenance and the slow bleed of highly trained engineers through numerous rounds of redundancies, leaving Qantas Engineering with about 20% fewer engineers. Yet in the same time the fleet has expanded by about 20% - a clearly massive increase in productivity per engineer. Yet the current Qantas Engineering management (many of whom have no prior aircraft engineering or aviation management background) have introduced new policies and procedures that make it increasingly difficult to do our core job of fixing aircraft in a timely manner.
There have been repeated changes in organisational structure; a sharp decline in the number of spare parts held and an inadequate distribution of the remaining spare parts; outsourcing of numerous component repair functions that were once done in-house to unmatched standards of both turnover time, quality and reliability; a proliferation of lower and middle management roles; more engineers involved in “special projects” and other frivolous and unnecessary tasks rather than actually working on aircraft… the list goes on.
Over the years our productivity has increased despite these new policies and procedures. This is because in the past we worked around, massaged, bent and stretched them and sometimes outright ignored the sillier ones. We made do with the little we had left. We worked overtime on our days off and after our shift ended, and worked through our meal-breaks. We risked dismissal for violating company policies and procedures as we worked around the shortages of equipment caused by constant cost-cutting and the failures, impracticality and lack of common sense inherent in those policies and procedures. Why? To get the job done, because that’s what engineers do. It’s in our blood. We have made many representations to management in order to streamline the processes but they have not been implemented because the ideas are not their own. Decades of experience in the industry are systematically ignored by inexperienced managers.
And then there is the issue of training. We know all about Office Ergonomics, Diversity, Hearing Conservation and Fatigue Management. We have seen every tier of management and supervision pass through leadership training at a forest retreat at a cost of thousands per head, only to see the managers ignore everything they've learned and particiapate in a "buggery campaign" against the people they are supposed to lead. But the really important stuff has been lacking the last couple of years. Like being trained on the aircraft types in the fleet that we're supposed to work on, approvals for running the engines, tug-driving, operating heavy equipment, first aid and fuel tank entry to name a few. We're now in the ridiculous situation of not actually having the trained people to do the job we're there to do. Over $300 million has supposedly been invested in Qantas Engineering, but little of it has reached where it is needed.
The Sydney Heavy Maintenance engineers were promised that when the Avalon (Victoria) Heavy Maintenance facility opened, only “overflow” work would be sent to Avalon. Then they closed Sydney Heavy maintenance. We were assured that when Sydney Heavy Maintenance was closed down, only 5% of heavy maintenance would be outsourced offshore. Well now it’s running at over 20%, with aircraft being sent to Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, New Zealand and the USA for critical maintenance and still requiring work to be finished or redone when they arrive back in Australia.
The company has been crying poor since the Asian Economic Crisis, when we accepted a lower than standard pay-rise. We accepted a 30 month pay freeze after September 11 and the SARS outbreak. At the time we were promised to be "looked after when times were good again." Then came bird-flu. Now it’s “fuel prices”. Now, we haven’t received a pay increase since January 2006. Our enterprise bargaining agreement has been under negotiation for over 18 months! This equates to a 1.7% per annum pay-rise over the last 10 years. That is a long-term decline in anyone’s language, considering the RBA’s “target band” for CPI is 2% - 3%. All the while, Qantas profits have increased and management have received obscene pay-rises and bonuses off the backs of our sacrifices, losses of terms & conditions and hard work. Just how good does it need to get before we're "looked after"?
We are now insensitive to the years of threats to outsource maintenance overseas, because it’s already happened by stealth - and the process continues at an increasing rate, with the lapses in quality regularly making the news! We now choose not to work on our days off. We now choose to work strictly within the company policies and procedures, no matter how stupid, short-sighted, time-consuming, impractical, restrictive and inefficient.
Why? We have been abused for doing our jobs to the utmost whilst at work and refusing to work on our days off; we have been unable to take leave for months; we have been insulted with an inadequate pay offer; we have been lied to and threatened over outsourcing; and our improved efficiencies and attempts to further improve them have been ignored. We are tired of being under-trained, under-equipped and under-resourced, and yet we're still expected to work miracles daily by a disengaged yet desperate management. Our families suffer absences through long nights and weekends, but they accepted it as par for the course. Now they suffer more hardship as the bread-winners' work-loads, stresses and pressures build, leave is cancelled or denied, fatigue mounts and prices rise. Unfortunately, most of us are NOT earning $130,000 per year as claimed by our CEO. Since January 2006, CPI has risen over 4.2%. Cheaper imports and a stronger dollar have masked the real inflation in the essentials of life, like food and mortgages. All we want is respect, and a fair pay-rise that reflects a community standard of well above 3%. Qantas sells itself as the Spirit of Australia, yet there is a telling absence of that most Australian spirit, the spirit of the fair go.
Next time you fly Qantas and your flight is delayed and you receive a note accusing us of “industrial action and a go slow campaign”, please keep the facts in mind.
Regards and apologies for the rant. I feel a lot better now! J
Someone in Qantas management has authorised the distribution of letters and notes to affected passengers accusing us of a “go slow campaign”. The truth is that we are not working overtime on our days off, and we are fully complying with the policies and procedures written by Qantas Engineering management, which actually adds to our workload.
Unfortunately, Qantas Engineering has become overstretched. The last few years has seen the closure of Sydney Heavy Maintenance and the slow bleed of highly trained engineers through numerous rounds of redundancies, leaving Qantas Engineering with about 20% fewer engineers. Yet in the same time the fleet has expanded by about 20% - a clearly massive increase in productivity per engineer. Yet the current Qantas Engineering management (many of whom have no prior aircraft engineering or aviation management background) have introduced new policies and procedures that make it increasingly difficult to do our core job of fixing aircraft in a timely manner.
There have been repeated changes in organisational structure; a sharp decline in the number of spare parts held and an inadequate distribution of the remaining spare parts; outsourcing of numerous component repair functions that were once done in-house to unmatched standards of both turnover time, quality and reliability; a proliferation of lower and middle management roles; more engineers involved in “special projects” and other frivolous and unnecessary tasks rather than actually working on aircraft… the list goes on.
Over the years our productivity has increased despite these new policies and procedures. This is because in the past we worked around, massaged, bent and stretched them and sometimes outright ignored the sillier ones. We made do with the little we had left. We worked overtime on our days off and after our shift ended, and worked through our meal-breaks. We risked dismissal for violating company policies and procedures as we worked around the shortages of equipment caused by constant cost-cutting and the failures, impracticality and lack of common sense inherent in those policies and procedures. Why? To get the job done, because that’s what engineers do. It’s in our blood. We have made many representations to management in order to streamline the processes but they have not been implemented because the ideas are not their own. Decades of experience in the industry are systematically ignored by inexperienced managers.
And then there is the issue of training. We know all about Office Ergonomics, Diversity, Hearing Conservation and Fatigue Management. We have seen every tier of management and supervision pass through leadership training at a forest retreat at a cost of thousands per head, only to see the managers ignore everything they've learned and particiapate in a "buggery campaign" against the people they are supposed to lead. But the really important stuff has been lacking the last couple of years. Like being trained on the aircraft types in the fleet that we're supposed to work on, approvals for running the engines, tug-driving, operating heavy equipment, first aid and fuel tank entry to name a few. We're now in the ridiculous situation of not actually having the trained people to do the job we're there to do. Over $300 million has supposedly been invested in Qantas Engineering, but little of it has reached where it is needed.
The Sydney Heavy Maintenance engineers were promised that when the Avalon (Victoria) Heavy Maintenance facility opened, only “overflow” work would be sent to Avalon. Then they closed Sydney Heavy maintenance. We were assured that when Sydney Heavy Maintenance was closed down, only 5% of heavy maintenance would be outsourced offshore. Well now it’s running at over 20%, with aircraft being sent to Malaysia, Hong Kong, the Philippines, New Zealand and the USA for critical maintenance and still requiring work to be finished or redone when they arrive back in Australia.
The company has been crying poor since the Asian Economic Crisis, when we accepted a lower than standard pay-rise. We accepted a 30 month pay freeze after September 11 and the SARS outbreak. At the time we were promised to be "looked after when times were good again." Then came bird-flu. Now it’s “fuel prices”. Now, we haven’t received a pay increase since January 2006. Our enterprise bargaining agreement has been under negotiation for over 18 months! This equates to a 1.7% per annum pay-rise over the last 10 years. That is a long-term decline in anyone’s language, considering the RBA’s “target band” for CPI is 2% - 3%. All the while, Qantas profits have increased and management have received obscene pay-rises and bonuses off the backs of our sacrifices, losses of terms & conditions and hard work. Just how good does it need to get before we're "looked after"?
We are now insensitive to the years of threats to outsource maintenance overseas, because it’s already happened by stealth - and the process continues at an increasing rate, with the lapses in quality regularly making the news! We now choose not to work on our days off. We now choose to work strictly within the company policies and procedures, no matter how stupid, short-sighted, time-consuming, impractical, restrictive and inefficient.
Why? We have been abused for doing our jobs to the utmost whilst at work and refusing to work on our days off; we have been unable to take leave for months; we have been insulted with an inadequate pay offer; we have been lied to and threatened over outsourcing; and our improved efficiencies and attempts to further improve them have been ignored. We are tired of being under-trained, under-equipped and under-resourced, and yet we're still expected to work miracles daily by a disengaged yet desperate management. Our families suffer absences through long nights and weekends, but they accepted it as par for the course. Now they suffer more hardship as the bread-winners' work-loads, stresses and pressures build, leave is cancelled or denied, fatigue mounts and prices rise. Unfortunately, most of us are NOT earning $130,000 per year as claimed by our CEO. Since January 2006, CPI has risen over 4.2%. Cheaper imports and a stronger dollar have masked the real inflation in the essentials of life, like food and mortgages. All we want is respect, and a fair pay-rise that reflects a community standard of well above 3%. Qantas sells itself as the Spirit of Australia, yet there is a telling absence of that most Australian spirit, the spirit of the fair go.
Next time you fly Qantas and your flight is delayed and you receive a note accusing us of “industrial action and a go slow campaign”, please keep the facts in mind.
Regards and apologies for the rant. I feel a lot better now! J
Last edited by Konehead; 16th Jul 2008 at 01:51.
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bloody good post konehead
Put in something about dixon and co's pay packets
and I will email it to everyone I know.
Could be the start of a really good chain mail
Well done old chap
Put in something about dixon and co's pay packets
and I will email it to everyone I know.
Could be the start of a really good chain mail
Well done old chap
Love your work!!!!
The Reverend
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acslame, it is an excellent post. One of the reasons is that he declined to include your suggestion.
Put in something about dixon and co's pay packets
and I will email it to everyone I know.
and I will email it to everyone I know.
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Well said Konehead, and while all this has been happening no one has bothered to turn around and ask us how our sanity is these days.
Every time we go to work its a game of wondering what the hell have management done today. Its like a bad marriage, i think we should all plea battered wife's syndrome.
Every time we go to work its a game of wondering what the hell have management done today. Its like a bad marriage, i think we should all plea battered wife's syndrome.
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shazza, is that CAR30 CCLD, like cancelled by CASA?
another bite on the arse for the amazing management.
I heard the Kiwi lames just got 4.5% ++?
Qantas management have learnt nothing from their trans
tasman counterparts. I can see some parallels here...
http://www.pprune.org/forums/d-g-rep...ml#post3406093
another bite on the arse for the amazing management.
I heard the Kiwi lames just got 4.5% ++?
Qantas management have learnt nothing from their trans
tasman counterparts. I can see some parallels here...
http://www.pprune.org/forums/d-g-rep...ml#post3406093