SQ Australian Pilots made redundant
 

Apparently Singapore Airlines has layed off all their Australian Pilots... if anyone could shed some light or confirm this i would be most grateful.:ok:

Why only Australian Pilots? I don't get this one sorry...

Don't know if it's true but Ozmates have been given special expat treatment before due to their militant reputation in the wake of the 1989 AFAP debacle. AFAP somehow convinced the membership to resign en masse, hoping a prime minister with a labor background would force a settlement. In the U.S. PATCO convinced the air traffic controllers to go on an illegal strike hoping former labor leader Ronald Reagan would call them back to work, the results were similar.

Emirates put a hiring ban on Ozzies a few years ago, fearing that they would try to replicate their union movement in Dubai.

I ran into a former Cathay 49'er from Australia in KIX the other day. He was working on a Parc contract for one of the Japanese carriers. He felt bitter because he had loyally followed AFAP off a cliff then became a point man for HKAOA only to be hung out to dry when his contract was suddenly terminated in the purge.

SQ has been firing flight attendants as they near completion bonus payments and rumor has it that another round of management heads are on the block, including several station managers.

1 Australian + 1 Australian = Birth of a Union = Bad News.

Will be so for the forseeable future.

airbubba, I have always regarded your performance on the banjo in the movie 'Deliverance' as one of your finest moments, but.....um....what the h##l are you talking about?...:mad:

For anyone who is tempted to take some of the above comments and turn this into an unrelated discussion, I'm going to throw in a preventative comment --

"Please stay with the original question in the first post."

Does anyone have any knowledge of Singapore Airlines laying off/making redundant their Australian pilots?

A small number of Australia-based pilots on the SQ Mauritius contract have had their contracts terminated. Obviously, most of these Australia-based pilots are Australians, but a number of people of other nationalities also employed on the SQ Mauritius contract have received the DCM notices from SQ over the last two weeks,

As for Airbubba’s comments, all I can say is a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If his many comments on Israel on other threads are even halfway as far off track as his comments above are, I can understand why they anger people who do know about what’s going on there.

I suspect (suspect? I’d be willing to bet on the fact) that SQ management is using the crisis created by SARS to clean house of people they perceive to have ‘bad’ attitudes, who have taken too many sick days, or quite possibly who can be replaced with cheaper new hires.

In my opinion, any talk of 1989 being a factor is utterly ridiculous, but that’s just my opinion.

The bottom line is – they saw a way to save some money and took the opportunity.

As far as I know Bubba EK was employing Oz pilots quite recently:cool:

Well, I don't really perceive the Australians to be militant (except maybe with a bowl of peanuts in HKG <g>). However, they themselves have claimed here and elsewhere to be "blacklisted" by some employers due to historical reasons. There was a lengthy thread here on the EK hiring band a few years ago, it seems to be lost to one of the server upgrades.

I agree that 1989 was a long time ago but some alumni still claim to be blacklisted at home fairly recently:

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthr...threadid=20698

Ironically, many of the "blacklisted" former AFAP members at Cathay were attempting to blacklist CX applicants in the wake of the 49'er sackings.

As I said in the earlier post, there is precedent in the expat world for discrimination on the basis of nationality in employment practices, maybe SQ closing an Australian base was the source of the original rumor.

As this thread heads towards another long arguement about the "DISPUTE" I would like to try to get back to the original question.
No, SIA has not fired all its Aussie pilots. About 16 expat pilots were made redundant as documented on other threads in the Fareast Forum. I know of one American, a Dane, a Namibian and a Brit who saddly lost their jobs. I guess there would have been a few Aussies as well but cant be sure.

Thanks for the clarification Chambudzi!

I like the bit about pilots being targeted in the clearout with a high
social sickness statistic,they ought to try that on BA long haul cabin crew that would sort out the pot boilers!

Nothing unusual here.
SQ in the past has used slack periods to get rid of those, for whatever perceived reasons, they consider not team players.
In early 1980 when fuel prices spiked, the 707 fleet was reduced (in 1981 eliminated) and a few Captains, who marched to their own music, were dismissed.
In addition, several others were not offered positions on the B747.
Several of these folks gave a really hard time to many local First Officers, for reasons known only to themselves.
Could never understand why as almost all of these same First Officers moved onto the 707 (and 727) directly from light aircraft, and did a fine job.

I do not believe the reason for the retrenching of the SIA Mauritius pilots had anything to do with getting rid of those with "bad attitudes" or "not part of the team". ALPAS, the local boys club training ground for future management, passed a resolution to the effect that their will be no negotiating with the company on pay reductions until all overseas based pilots have gone. They lost that one but I think to appease that fine fraternity of pilot representatives, as well as wanting to rattle the unions cage, SQ picked a pilot from each overseas base. The choosing of these guys is a mystery as I know a few personally, convincing me the move was politically motivated.
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