Er, no. Employees have the right to ask for anything they goddamn well please. Management has the right to tell them to piss up a rope.
Management does not have the right to agree to a union contract, and then get all shirty about it at some random future point.
Hey, I’m no union sympathizer, but I immediately thought of Reagan getting rid of traffic controllers (who also played hardball as well) in the interest of the public as well. I think what the Australian government did is very comparable to that. It was the right thing to do.
Errr… yes, that’s kind of my point.
No, you are arguing the exact opposite–that you feel sympathy for the guy who tried to force the government to disband or severely restrict the union.
And you throw in lamenting the poor CEO that has to do a little extra paperwork. Poor guy, actually having to do his job after getting a 70% raise. Oh, noes! He might quit because he’s too crappy a CEO to handle basic negotiations! Our business is going to be so worse off without him.
IOW, if you can’t handle a little paperwork and negotiation, then WTF are you doing in business? It’s pretty much your entire job!
But were customers getting the service they paid and planned for before the lockout ? Sounds to me that there were numerous strikes and industrial actions by the union members costing $16 million a week ad infinitum. And the government stood idly by. At least now, with the government involved, service is fully restored and no more money is wasted. Brilliant strategy. No wonder they pay Joyce the big bucks. He’s already got back his $5,000,000 annual salary for Quantas, and that’s why Grumman will never earn that kind of money in his life time.
It should be noted that it was not the union that took the aircraft out of the sky, it was the management who ordered the airline down.
I think that putting the blame on the unions for this fiasco is misplaced.
What’s the difference, really? The demand for a pay increase could be small or large.[sup]*[/sup] Management can negotiate to give up as little as possible, and those of us commenting on the situation can decide if we think the request is reasonable or not. To ask for more money is not inherently unreasonable.
By the same token, demands for rules and commitments could be reasonable, depending on what the commitments are. If the workers want hot tubs filled with champagne and a Swedish massage at the end of every shift, they’re probably not going to get it. If they’re asking for safety harnesses when they work more than 30 feet off the ground, I wouldn’t call that nitpicking. If they’re asking that Qantas not circumvent their contracts by moving all the jobs overseas, I have no problem with that.[sup]#[/sup]
So, smiling, are all non-monetary demands by a union considered nitpicking, or are there specifics in this case that you object to?
Jeebus but there are some people posting in this thread who have no frickin’ idea what they are talking about.
This isn’t about an existing agreement. It’s about a new one. It isn’t purely about Qantas taking industrial action and letting down passengers: the unions have been striking for months on and off.
It also isn’t about pay. It’s about the employees wanting to secure their positions and prevent offshoring. The pay is chickenfeed in relation to the long term strategy.
The reason Joyce did what he did (I should think, I don’t have inside knowledge) is that the only way he can get Fair Work Australia (the government industrial regulator) to make a ruling on a new agreement is to provoke a crisis because FWA can only step in at that point: another reason the unions have been doing a slow burn.
The reason Qantas want FWA to step in and the unions don’t want FWA to do so is that FWA is restricted in the subject matter of terms it can impose. Without attempting to go into the nitty gritty, suffice to say that the unions probably won’t be able to get the type of anti-contracting/off-shoring terms that they want from FWA.
Another point to bear in mind is that Qantas faces the same challenge as any modern business that is (or parts of which are) outsourcable to cheaper nations. It is doubtful that Qantas will survive long term if it has to keep competing internationally with airlines who can pay a fraction of the cost for aircrew and maintenance. At the moment Qantas is in a weird midway space in which it has been privatised and must compete but it is still thought of as the national asset that it was previously. If it’s too precious to fail or compete, it never should have been sold off.
As to damage to brand, I’m no expert and don’t know how it will play out. However, those who instantly assume Joyce’s tactic was insane should consider his long term goals as above. They should also consider whether this short sharp disaster will do more or less damage than continual niggling wildcat strikes.
I think Princhester’s summary is close to the truth. Joyce has forced the unions to submit to binding arbitration. There is no guarantee that either party will get what they want but the industrial action is over.
As to prices. A couple I was speaking to today are going to Canada for a holiday. They wanted to fly Qantas but are flying Air Canada because they save $1600 on their two economy class tickets. They could have got even cheaper no-name flights. They weren’t happy to turn their backs on Qantas but as she said, “It’s a no-brainer really.”
Not quite. Either QANTAS or the unions could have gone to the FWA. But that would have been considered as a sign of weakness or surrender. In the same manner, so could have the State Governments bleating “somebody should do something”. Nobody wants to be the one who blinks first but eventually the buck gets to somebody who can’t dodge the hospital pass. When you deal in industrial relations it’s hard ball played by industrial strength arseholes from the start.
This is right on the money.
I agree basically with the three above posters.
What (to me) is odd is that Qantas management were being seen by a lot of people as being the victim of threatened industrial action. This action would then be called off, however, the airline had already had to proceed to cancel flights. There was some sympathy with the airline.
Joyce comes in over the top, stops the world for 70,000 passengers and lays off the workers. Immediate condemnation for the airline because of the disruption (oh, and probably the biggest sporting event in Australia is being run) and Joyce is typically seen as a short arse Irish import, with no management skills who is a century out of date. The actual truth of what is happening and who wants what is lost.
Except that the Govt is seen again as sitting on it’s arse and doing nothing while the PM swans at CHOGM.
And to paraphrase Kambucta - fuck Joyce.
How so? Do you see the situation pre-shutdown as falling within s423, 424, or 431 of the Act?
I think QANTAS or the Unions could have applied under s424 pre-shutdown on either safety or economic harm grounds. I don’t think either were likely to do so.
Don’t agree. Prior to the crisis the union was calling and then canceling strikes. This was not endangering anyone and not causing economic damage to the required degree. It’s late and I’m not at work but my recollection is that there was an FWA case in which it was held that the degree of economic harm required had to pass a high threshold test.
Also I don’t really understand why Qantas would have been reluctant to go to the FWA. As you have agreed they wanted this dispute to go to the FWA. Why would they have lost face by taking it there? Better to have done that if they could have than feel their only option to get the matter before the FWA was to shoot themselves in the face with the shutdown.
Read me again. I most defintely do not and didnt have sympathy for him. I was pointing out that he might still be right, even if he is stupid.
Actually, Quantas would probably handle the champagne and massages more easily. The issue is that non-monetary demands tend to involve restructuring whole work processes in an extremely inefficient manner.
For example, the union men want to protect their jobs - perfectly understandable. But from the company’s standpoint, that may be unacceptable. What if the baggage people slack off? What if they push to keep new workers out? What happens if the company needs part-timers? Or if they need to pull people off of baggaeg to handle some other service? These are not unlikely scenarios, and in my reading it already is the scenario. Likewise, the company isn’t going to lightly guarrantee a union shop future work, when they can’t predict when and where they’ll need in the future. Alternatively that shop might not be meeting the quality or cost expectations for the company.
The short version is that I find their wage increases are unlikely to be the key issue. As to what role is played in the problem the complicated relationship airlines have to their multiple (often conflicting) unions, I can’t say for America, let alone Australia. You could fill a library just on that suject alone.