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A scathing attack
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/ma...qant-m09.shtml
Qantas chief threatens “showdown" with workers over pay
By Terry Cook
9 May 2008
Qantas Airlines chief executive Geoff Dixon has issued a thinly-veiled strike-breaking threat against the company’s 1,700 licensed engineers, who recently threw out a deal signed by their union for a 3-percent pay rise, far less than the official inflation rate of 4.2 percent.
In a lengthy feature interview with the Australian Financial Review (AFR) on May 5, Dixon warned that the company would shift operations to low-wage locations. “We are determined—and I mean determined—to maintain that 3 percent. It’s not negotiable and I mean that. The board has signed off on it.”
An in-principle agreement signed by the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) in February was overturned by the union’s members in a ratification ballot. The engineers, who inspect and certify aircraft before they take off, are currently voting on strike action for a 5 percent claim.
While theAFR headlined the interview, “Dixon flags a final union showdown,” his threats are clearly directed against the rank-and-file who defied the ALAEA executive.
The union’s package also contained concessions, such as giving management complete control over rostering, allowing it to impose 9.5-hour, 10.9-hour and even 12-hour rosters to meet the traffic schedules of Qantas’s new A380 fleet. The proposal lifted restrictions on the employment of fixed-term contract workers and allowed the company to increase its use of part-time and casual workers.
The engineers’ rejection of the package stunned both the company and the ALAEA. The engineers had been under intense pressure to bow to the company’s dictates, with acceptance of the agreement widely billed in the media as a foregone conclusion. ALAEA federal secretary Wayne Vasta hailed the deal as “a win for our members”.
The company made known it had made strike-breaking arrangements and began recruiting a scab workforce. It threatened to send inspection work offshore if the ALAEA members “proved too disruptive”. In effect, Dixon’s interview has resurrected that threat.
Moreover, the ballot was held against the backdrop of much publicised demands by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that workers accept “wage restraint”, supposedly to combat inflation—a call that was accepted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
The Flight Attendants Association of Australia (FAAA) had already imposed a five-year agreement on its 3,000 Australian-based long-haul cabin crew members that held down pay increases to just 3 percent annually and accepted inferior pay and longer working hours for 2,000 new starters. Qantas intended to use both the ALAEA and FAAA agreements as benchmarks to impose the 3 percent ceiling and extract concessions from the rest of its workforce.
In his AFR interview, Dixon declared that if “we can’t get the conditions to maintain our aircraft onshore,” Qantas would “decide to invest in operations overseas”. He added: “We compete with maintenance operations in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and the Philippines.”
Qantas slashed its maintenance workforce in 2006 when it shut its heavy engineering base in Sydney at the cost of 480 jobs. Last December, the airline bought a half stake in Malaysian-based MAS Aerospace Engineering to give it access to the Asian aircraft maintenance market. While Qantas claimed that the Malaysian operation would only take “overflow” work from its Australian base, Dixon’s latest threat implies the opposite.
Qantas is moving to match a host of its international competitors who have transferred maintenance operations to China. The ALAEA has responded by whipping up Australian nationalism, blaming workers in low-wage countries for the loss of “Australian” job. A genuine campaign to defend jobs and conditions would necessarily require turning to airline workers in Asia and internationally for a joint struggle against the endless cost cutting of Qantas and other airlines.
Last year, Dixon and his fellow directors backed a failed $11.1 billion takeover bid of Qantas by a Macquarie Bank-led syndicate, Airline Partners Australia (APA). The bid would have allowed APA to rip back $4 billion in dividends after 12 months and load Qantas with $7.5 billion of its own debt. Hundreds more jobs would have been axed as APA asset-stripped and carved-up the company. Dixon and other board members stood to gain as much as $200 million each.
Now, facing rising fuel prices and fierce global competition, Qantas is determined to maximise profits by imposing ever-greater cost cutting on its workforce. In the six months to December 31, it posted a pre-tax profit of $830 million from its mainline flying business, more than double the previous result.
Any strike-breaking operation by Qantas would undoubtedly have the support of the Rudd government because a defeat for the engineers would help set the scene for wider “wage restraint”. Dixon, along with other leading coporate CEOs, was an honoured participant in Rudd’s recent “2020 summit”, which advanced calls to slash corporate taxes, reduce business regulation and open up infrastructure projects to private investment.
While the engineers face a determined campaign by the company, backed by the Labor government and other sections of the corporate and financial elite, the ALAEA has made no appeal for support from other sections of Qantas workers or workers in general, all of whom face similar attacks.
Left in the hands of the ALAEA, the engineers’ dispute will be betrayed. Like every section of the union leadership, the ALAEA is well aware that a genuine struggle against Qantas would attract wide support among working people and could become a focal point for a political movement that would challenge the Rudd government and its big business agenda.
Qantas chief threatens “showdown" with workers over pay
By Terry Cook
9 May 2008
Qantas Airlines chief executive Geoff Dixon has issued a thinly-veiled strike-breaking threat against the company’s 1,700 licensed engineers, who recently threw out a deal signed by their union for a 3-percent pay rise, far less than the official inflation rate of 4.2 percent.
In a lengthy feature interview with the Australian Financial Review (AFR) on May 5, Dixon warned that the company would shift operations to low-wage locations. “We are determined—and I mean determined—to maintain that 3 percent. It’s not negotiable and I mean that. The board has signed off on it.”
An in-principle agreement signed by the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) in February was overturned by the union’s members in a ratification ballot. The engineers, who inspect and certify aircraft before they take off, are currently voting on strike action for a 5 percent claim.
While theAFR headlined the interview, “Dixon flags a final union showdown,” his threats are clearly directed against the rank-and-file who defied the ALAEA executive.
The union’s package also contained concessions, such as giving management complete control over rostering, allowing it to impose 9.5-hour, 10.9-hour and even 12-hour rosters to meet the traffic schedules of Qantas’s new A380 fleet. The proposal lifted restrictions on the employment of fixed-term contract workers and allowed the company to increase its use of part-time and casual workers.
The engineers’ rejection of the package stunned both the company and the ALAEA. The engineers had been under intense pressure to bow to the company’s dictates, with acceptance of the agreement widely billed in the media as a foregone conclusion. ALAEA federal secretary Wayne Vasta hailed the deal as “a win for our members”.
The company made known it had made strike-breaking arrangements and began recruiting a scab workforce. It threatened to send inspection work offshore if the ALAEA members “proved too disruptive”. In effect, Dixon’s interview has resurrected that threat.
Moreover, the ballot was held against the backdrop of much publicised demands by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that workers accept “wage restraint”, supposedly to combat inflation—a call that was accepted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU).
The Flight Attendants Association of Australia (FAAA) had already imposed a five-year agreement on its 3,000 Australian-based long-haul cabin crew members that held down pay increases to just 3 percent annually and accepted inferior pay and longer working hours for 2,000 new starters. Qantas intended to use both the ALAEA and FAAA agreements as benchmarks to impose the 3 percent ceiling and extract concessions from the rest of its workforce.
In his AFR interview, Dixon declared that if “we can’t get the conditions to maintain our aircraft onshore,” Qantas would “decide to invest in operations overseas”. He added: “We compete with maintenance operations in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and the Philippines.”
Qantas slashed its maintenance workforce in 2006 when it shut its heavy engineering base in Sydney at the cost of 480 jobs. Last December, the airline bought a half stake in Malaysian-based MAS Aerospace Engineering to give it access to the Asian aircraft maintenance market. While Qantas claimed that the Malaysian operation would only take “overflow” work from its Australian base, Dixon’s latest threat implies the opposite.
Qantas is moving to match a host of its international competitors who have transferred maintenance operations to China. The ALAEA has responded by whipping up Australian nationalism, blaming workers in low-wage countries for the loss of “Australian” job. A genuine campaign to defend jobs and conditions would necessarily require turning to airline workers in Asia and internationally for a joint struggle against the endless cost cutting of Qantas and other airlines.
Last year, Dixon and his fellow directors backed a failed $11.1 billion takeover bid of Qantas by a Macquarie Bank-led syndicate, Airline Partners Australia (APA). The bid would have allowed APA to rip back $4 billion in dividends after 12 months and load Qantas with $7.5 billion of its own debt. Hundreds more jobs would have been axed as APA asset-stripped and carved-up the company. Dixon and other board members stood to gain as much as $200 million each.
Now, facing rising fuel prices and fierce global competition, Qantas is determined to maximise profits by imposing ever-greater cost cutting on its workforce. In the six months to December 31, it posted a pre-tax profit of $830 million from its mainline flying business, more than double the previous result.
Any strike-breaking operation by Qantas would undoubtedly have the support of the Rudd government because a defeat for the engineers would help set the scene for wider “wage restraint”. Dixon, along with other leading coporate CEOs, was an honoured participant in Rudd’s recent “2020 summit”, which advanced calls to slash corporate taxes, reduce business regulation and open up infrastructure projects to private investment.
While the engineers face a determined campaign by the company, backed by the Labor government and other sections of the corporate and financial elite, the ALAEA has made no appeal for support from other sections of Qantas workers or workers in general, all of whom face similar attacks.
Left in the hands of the ALAEA, the engineers’ dispute will be betrayed. Like every section of the union leadership, the ALAEA is well aware that a genuine struggle against Qantas would attract wide support among working people and could become a focal point for a political movement that would challenge the Rudd government and its big business agenda.
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Wingers, if loss of OT is a problem for you, It would benefit you to get this dispute over as quickly as possible.
The dispute will be shorter If nobody does OT at any time now. If some do OT at the end of the shift and “make it work” for the company, you will only be prolonging the pain.
Big delays, total chaos and as soon as possible will be the way to get it over quicker.
The dispute will be shorter If nobody does OT at any time now. If some do OT at the end of the shift and “make it work” for the company, you will only be prolonging the pain.
Big delays, total chaos and as soon as possible will be the way to get it over quicker.
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Bloomberg reports 4 hour stoppages
A report on the Bloomberg Television (Angela Macdonald-Smith)web site reports planned 4 hour stoppages on the 16 & 23 May.
"The labor association told Qantas overtime bans will start May 15 and that four-hour stop-work meetings will be held May 16 and May 23, the airline said."
The full article can be read here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p..._xM&refer=home
Dixon will not be a pushover prepare for the occasional pay 40hours minus two days pay. The best weapon we have is supplied by management, don't lose your cool, follow the instructions from the union and always follow the company procedures manual.......TO THE LETTER !!!!!
If we don't go in hard just chill out on a standard 38hr week and let QF pay the Newport Boys the $$$$$ to take up the slack. Spend some extra time with your kids or your Missus (mistress?). We will get a call at some stage.
"The labor association told Qantas overtime bans will start May 15 and that four-hour stop-work meetings will be held May 16 and May 23, the airline said."
The full article can be read here:
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p..._xM&refer=home
Dixon will not be a pushover prepare for the occasional pay 40hours minus two days pay. The best weapon we have is supplied by management, don't lose your cool, follow the instructions from the union and always follow the company procedures manual.......TO THE LETTER !!!!!
If we don't go in hard just chill out on a standard 38hr week and let QF pay the Newport Boys the $$$$$ to take up the slack. Spend some extra time with your kids or your Missus (mistress?). We will get a call at some stage.
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Dixon will not be a pushover
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True thosecotos, however our actions will merely fast track the outcome, whether that means new employment for some of us or a pay rise with our current employer, the outcome will not change what was going to happen at some time in the future.
Our claim for a slightly higher pay claim is not something that will send this company to the wall, it is a challenge to the company's wages policy due to a change in macro economics and the belt tightening we workers have endued while company profits have been healthy and the increase cost of living we are experiencing. I am sure if QF is gracious in defeat we can partner with them to continue our high standard of aircraft maintenance and a common goal toward a high standard of competitive work practices.
In saying that, like in any argument if either of us lose our cool there will be grief. Hopefully it's at Coward St
Our claim for a slightly higher pay claim is not something that will send this company to the wall, it is a challenge to the company's wages policy due to a change in macro economics and the belt tightening we workers have endued while company profits have been healthy and the increase cost of living we are experiencing. I am sure if QF is gracious in defeat we can partner with them to continue our high standard of aircraft maintenance and a common goal toward a high standard of competitive work practices.
In saying that, like in any argument if either of us lose our cool there will be grief. Hopefully it's at Coward St
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Hey Cotos lets forget the PIA because we are too scared. Lets just cave in and give management everything they want and hope they look after us in return. Just like they did when the SHM boys got the big A.
Have heard that the ALAEA have created some new Committees. One about Safety or something and another to monitor the strikebreakers and OT lords. I also heard that the first reports started to come back today.
OT list from Base was interesting. Two vocal opponents of 3% who recently attending the rowers meetings. Pretty sure they understood the game we are all playing and they still turn up to do the dirty on their mates. I just wonder myself if they felt just a slight bit of guilt as they walked through the gate and sat on the table with their temporary crew.
Ah well, I understand their names have been added to the list.
Have also heard that "The Voice" will be making a much overdue comeback.
Have heard that the ALAEA have created some new Committees. One about Safety or something and another to monitor the strikebreakers and OT lords. I also heard that the first reports started to come back today.
OT list from Base was interesting. Two vocal opponents of 3% who recently attending the rowers meetings. Pretty sure they understood the game we are all playing and they still turn up to do the dirty on their mates. I just wonder myself if they felt just a slight bit of guilt as they walked through the gate and sat on the table with their temporary crew.
Ah well, I understand their names have been added to the list.
Have also heard that "The Voice" will be making a much overdue comeback.
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Alert!
Assess the record. Where is Spanner Twister at! This is the sort of infiltration to be expected on this thread at this time. Spanner Twister, you have sat your time on the fence. Your last post smells! Your double meanings beg questioning.
Last edited by Acute Instinct; 10th May 2008 at 10:31. Reason: point of phrase
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Our ALAEA leaders cowards because they have a committee taking the names of all the mongrels who are lapping up the OT? You don't know what a coward is DOMO.
This is what I think a coward is.
A LAME who knows very well that he is about to go to battle led by his union and the objective is to make the airline slowly bleed to death because their is no overtime. But he does overtime to help the airline out. He uses a lame excuse about it not officially starting yet knowing full well that the only reason it hadn't started is because the union has to give the company 5 days notice to comply with Howards laws. A coward is a man that can't stand up to his wife and say, darling, I know you want a new dress but I want to keep my dignity and that means a hell of a lot more to me than your new f*en dress. Thats what a coward is.
This is what I think a coward is.
A LAME who knows very well that he is about to go to battle led by his union and the objective is to make the airline slowly bleed to death because their is no overtime. But he does overtime to help the airline out. He uses a lame excuse about it not officially starting yet knowing full well that the only reason it hadn't started is because the union has to give the company 5 days notice to comply with Howards laws. A coward is a man that can't stand up to his wife and say, darling, I know you want a new dress but I want to keep my dignity and that means a hell of a lot more to me than your new f*en dress. Thats what a coward is.
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send the OT bastards to Coventry,thats is what rid the the AME's of their cowards in the 01-02 dispute,just about all of them left at the end of that dispute never to return
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You know, The part of this whole thing that just amazes me
is that all we are really going for is CPI and we get treated like the worst
people in the world.
Dixon and his mates get HUGE bonuses and pay rises and that is OK
is that all we are really going for is CPI and we get treated like the worst
people in the world.
Dixon and his mates get HUGE bonuses and pay rises and that is OK
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ACSLAME
Short, sweet and to the point. You can't argue with that...unless you're an executive manager with no morals.
You know, The part of this whole thing that just amazes me
is that all we are really going for is CPI and we get treated like the worst
people in the world.
Dixon and his mates get HUGE bonuses and pay rises and that is OK
is that all we are really going for is CPI and we get treated like the worst
people in the world.
Dixon and his mates get HUGE bonuses and pay rises and that is OK
Short, sweet and to the point. You can't argue with that...unless you're an executive manager with no morals.
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Good post and to the point. for any media reading this thread I have cut and pasted acslame's post for clarity.
You know, The part of this whole thing that just amazes me
is that all we are really going for is CPI and we get treated like the worst
people in the world.
Dixon and his mates get HUGE bonuses and pay rises and that is OK
You know, The part of this whole thing that just amazes me
is that all we are really going for is CPI and we get treated like the worst
people in the world.
Dixon and his mates get HUGE bonuses and pay rises and that is OK
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You know, The part of this whole thing that just amazes me
is
is
snorting from the trough and committing international fraud, ie cargo cartel, slapping each other on the back,
high "FIVEs" etc thinking what a wonderful job they are doing.
They appear to be immoral & corrupt and don't care.
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Wanty
Very good point.
I think the official inflation rate for the quarter was 4%, but the real underlying inflation rate is running at about 12.5%.
So realistically, how can Qantas state a 3% rise is the standard, when the "Boards" payments/bonuses go up Dependant on economic situations.
Good Luck Guys.
Very good point.
I think the official inflation rate for the quarter was 4%, but the real underlying inflation rate is running at about 12.5%.
So realistically, how can Qantas state a 3% rise is the standard, when the "Boards" payments/bonuses go up Dependant on economic situations.
Good Luck Guys.
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wasn't my point k9p, it was acslame who pointed this out, I just made it larger, although I wholeheartedly agree with it.
Sick of being ripped off year after year by the suits who wouldn't know the first thing about aircraft if it bit them on the arse.
Sick of being ripped off year after year by the suits who wouldn't know the first thing about aircraft if it bit them on the arse.