For Shaggy.

[Dave]

Half of Qantas' jobs are on the line - as the boss Alan Joyce gets a nice $2 million bonus

Read more: Half of Qantas' jobs are on the line - as the boss Alan Joyce gets a nice $2 million bonus | News.com.au

QANTAS boss Alan Joyce has warned that half the airline would "be gone" within a year - with tens of thousands of jobs potentially at risk - if unions pursued their industrial campaign into 2012.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph following an annual general meeting in Sydney yesterday, Mr Joyce said parts of the airline would begin to be shut down if the current dispute with engineers, pilots and ground staff is not resolved.

"If action continues as the unions have promised, we will have no choice but to to shrink the airline bit by bit," he said.

"If it goes for more than a year, we estimate we will have to shut down half of Qantas operations. That's 50 per cent of Qantas, gone.

"It goes without saying that this would have very grave consequences for jobs."

His stark assessment of the financial costs of industrial action now crippling the airline - estimated to be $2 million a day - has put a cloud over at least 17,000 jobs, or almost half the Qantas workforce.

Services and flights would soon start to be wound down, with major disruptions to commercial and tourism travel within Australia and overseas.

Yesterday's AGM, held under tight security and a heavy police presence at the University of NSW, was told that the strike action had already cost Qantas $68 million, on top of the disruption to the public and tourism industry.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard yesterday said she was receiving regular briefings on the dispute, but would not say when or if the Government would intervene.


"I am maintaining regular briefings with the relevant ministers about the Qantas dispute so I am making sure I am continuously informed," she said.

"I believe Australians expect the parties to this dispute to get it fixed."

Transport Workers Union national secretary Tony Sheldon, who is tipped to win the nomination as the next national Labor Party president in December, said meetings held around the country yesterday endorsed further industrial action if Qantas does not guarantee job security.

The fireworks that were expected to occur did not eventuate at the meeting.

There was a brief 10-minute protest by the Occupy Sydney group before the meeting started at 11am.

Shareholders booed during the meeting when Mr Joyce was awarded a $2 million pay rise.

However, in a vindication of his management of the airline, 98 per cent of shareholders voted in favour of it.

In addition to pay rises, the engineers, pilots and ground staff are protesting at Qantas's plans to restructure the airline with job losses of 1000 and a new non-Qantas branded offshoot to be based in Asia.

The unions claim the restructure amounted to off-shoring pilots, engineers and catering jobs. Qantas management reject this.

Budget offshoot Jetstar's overheads are far lower than those of Qantas. It has cut costs by outsourcing flight crewing, payroll and its call centre to Manilla.

Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers' Association secretary Steve Purvinas warned industrial action could extend until the middle of next year.

Mr Purvinas argued Qantas' call for government intervention was unnecessary because flight cancellations were negligible.

In September, when the entire month was affected by industrial action by engineers, Qantas only cancelled 1.8 per cent of it's flights and Jetstar cancelled 2.1 per cent.

Vice President of the Australian and International Pilots Association, Richard Woodward, said pilots would also be ramping up its industrial action over the coming weeks and months.

Mr Purvinas said the Qantas board was "trying to shift the best part of our airline to Asia. Which is something that I think most Australians despise".

He warned that more "severe action" may need to be taken by his union in coming months.

"The licensed engineers have a number of options up our sleeve (including) stoppages of up to 48 hours," he said.

"At this stage we haven't come to anywhere near that stage but we are of course concerned about government intervention and now with the premiers of NSW and victoria calling for this intervention so that they can save their tourism industry."


Read more: Half of Qantas' jobs are on the line - as the boss Alan Joyce gets a nice $2 million bonus | News.com.au

 

[Dave]

Good luck Shane.

Hope use get the pay rise.

Your big boss is a scum bag taking that pay rise.

 

[Jason]

Why doesn't the Labor Government use the part of the Fair Work Act where it can immediately end any Industrial Action? Instead they use a part that forces the decision on Fair Work Australia.

 

[ST-R]

Why doesn't the Labour Government use the part of the Fair Work Act where it can immediately end any Industrial Action? Instead they use a part that forces the decision on Fair Work Australia.

Jason,

There was a bit in The sunday Mail today that indicated that may happen.

Interesting to see what happens, Gillard will be all over it to win votes.

Greg

 

[terryc]

Qantas has been shifting jobs OS for over a decade that I am aware of. At one stage, everything was inspected in Australia and you never read anything about mechanical problems. Now it seems they have them weekly.

I'm not sure what action people expect the Federal government to do. The last time they intervened in a pilots strike(Anset, 199?), a whole pile of people lost their jobs. Plenty of pilots from this area(surprisingly popular for pilots with families) had to move overseas to find work.

 

[shaggy]

Hi Fella's

Yes I still have my job.Yes I am a aircraft engineer-ame but I am not a licensed engineer-lame.Yes Dave I do agree with you about our CEO,maybe if the current Virgin CEO was chosen instead of the one we have,we may not have had this trouble as he had been at Qantas for about 35 years.If you like a good read I suggest you found the book call "The Men Who Killed QANTAS" by Matthew Benns.


Shane

 

[Jason]

I'm not sure what action people expect the Federal government to do. The last time they intervened in a pilots strike(Anset, 199?), a whole pile of people lost their jobs.

Do you mean the pilot strike in 1989? When Ansett pilots, Australia's highest paid pilots at the time, went on strike asking for a 30% payrise?

The pilots started a campaign of working 9am to 5pm, 7 days a week, they were given a choice by the airlines with the backing of the (Labor) government:

Continue their action, risking litigation that put all their assets at risk (home, super, savings etc) or resign.

There was a mass resignation.

I wouldn't call that "losing your job." And hey, who wouldn't like a 30% payrise? Just got greedy if you ask me.

 

[Krankin]

I'd like to see "short man syndrome" joyce hit the road and don't you come back no more no more................

 

[shaggy]

I'd like to see "short man syndrome" joyce hit the road and don't you come back no more no more................

You got that right

Shane

 

[Krankin]

Finally the truth is coming out!

For those who haven't seen it, Senator Xenophon's speech of 23rd Aug is reproduced below.

This confirms what others have been saying for a while about how Qantas is subsidising Jetstar to its own detriment and to circumvent the Qantas Sale Act.

Senator XENOPHON (South Australia) (19:37): I rise to speak tonight on an issue that is close to the hearts of many Australians, and that is the future of our national carrier, Qantas. At 90, Qantas is the world's oldest continuously running airline. It is an iconic Australian company. Its story is woven into the story of Australia and Australians have long taken pride in the service and safety standards provided by our national carrier. Who didn't feel a little proud when Dustin Hoffman uttered the immortal line in Rain Man, 'Qantas never crashed'?

While it is true that Qantas never crashes, the sad reality is that Qantas is being deliberately trashed by management in the pursuit of short-term profits and at the expense of its workers and passengers. For a long time, Qantas management has been pushing the line that Qantas international is losing money and that Jetstar is profitable. Tonight, it is imperative to expose those claims for the misinformation they are. The reality is that Qantas has long been used to subsidise Jetstar in order to make Jetstar look profitable and Qantas look like a burden. In a moment, I will provide detailed allegations of cost-shifting that I have sourced from within the Qantas Group, and when you know the facts you quickly see a pattern. When there is a cost to be paid, Qantas pays it, and when there is a profit to be made, Jetstar makes it.

But first we need to ask ourselves: why? Why would management want Qantas to look unprofitable? Why would they want to hide the cost of a competing brand within their group, namely Jetstar, in amongst the costs faced by Qantas?

To understand that, you need to go back to the days when Qantas was being privatised. When Qantas was privatised the Qantas Sale Act 1992 imposed a number of conditions, which in turn created a number of problems for any management group that wanted to flog off parts of the business. Basically, Qantas has to maintain its principal place of operations here in Australia, but that does not stop management selling any subsidiaries, which brings us to Jetstar.

Qantas has systematically built up the low-cost carrier at the expense of the parent company. I have been provided with a significant number of examples where costs which should have been billed back to Jetstar have in fact been paid for by Qantas. These are practices that I believe Qantas and Jetstar management need to explain. For example, when Jetstar took over the Cairns-Darwin-Singapore route, replacing Qantas flights, a deal was struck that required Qantas to provide Jetstar with $6 million a year in revenue. Why? Why would one part of the business give up a profitable route like that and then be asked to pay for the privilege? Then there are other subsidies when it comes to freight. On every sector Jetstar operates an A330, Qantas pays $6,200 to $6,400 for freight space regardless of actual uplift. When you do the calculations, this turns out to be a small fortune. Based on 82 departures a week, that is nearly half-a-million dollars a week or $25½ million a year.

Then there are the arrangements within the airport gates. In Melbourne, for example, my information from inside the Qantas group is that Jetstar does not pay for any gates, but instead Qantas domestic is charged for the gates. My question for Qantas management is simple: are these arrangements replicated right around Australia and why is Qantas paying Jetstar's bills? Why does Qantas lease five check-in counters at Sydney Terminal 2, only to let Jetstar use one for free? It has been reported to me that there are other areas where Jetstar's costs magically become Qantas's costs. For example, Jetstar does not have a treasury department and has only one person in government affairs. I am told Qantas's legal department also does free work for Jetstar.

Then there is the area of disruption handling where flights are cancelled and people need to be rebooked. Here, insiders tell me, Qantas handles all rebookings and the traffic is all one way. It is extremely rare for a Qantas passenger to be rebooked on a Jetstar flight, but Jetstar passengers are regularly rebooked onto Qantas flights. I am informed that Jetstar never pays Qantas for the cost of those rebooked passengers and yet Jetstar gets to keep the revenue from the original bookings. This, I am told, is worth millions of dollars every year. So Jetstar gets the profit while Qantas bears the costs of carriage. It has also been reported to me that when Qantas provides an aircraft to Jetstar to cover an unserviceable plane, Jetstar does not pay for the use of this plane.

Yet another example relates to the Qantas Club. Jetstar passengers can and do use the Qantas Club but Jetstar does not pay for the cost of any of this. So is Qantas really losing money? Or is it profitable but simply losing money on paper because it is carrying so many costs incurred by Jetstar? We have been told by Qantas management that the changes that will effectively gut Qantas are necessary because Qantas international is losing money but, given the inside information I have just detailed, I would argue those claims need to be reassessed.

Indeed, given these extensive allegations of hidden costs, it would be foolish to take management's word that Qantas international is losing money. So why would Qantas want to make it look like Qantas international is losing money? Remember the failed 2007 private equity bid by the Allco Finance Group. It was rejected by shareholders, and thank goodness it was, for I am told that what we are seeing now is effectively a strategy of private equity sell-off by stealth.

Here is how it works. You have to keep Qantas flying to avoid breaching the Qantas Sale Act but that does not stop you from moving assets out of Qantas and putting them into an airline that you own but that is not controlled by the Qantas Sale Act. Then you work the figures to make it appear as though the international arm of Qantas is losing money. You use this to justify the slashing of jobs, maintenance standards and employment of foreign crews and, ultimately, the creation of an entirely new airlines to be based in Asia and which will not be called Qantas. The end result? Technically Qantas would still exist but it would end up a shell of its former self and the Qantas Group would end up with all these subsidiaries it can base overseas using poorly paid foreign crews with engineering and safety standards that do not match Australian standards. In time, if the Qantas Group wants to make a buck, they can flog these subsidiaries off for a tidy profit. Qantas management could pay the National Boys Choir and the Australian Girls’ Choir to run to the desert and sing about still calling Australia home, but people would not buy it. It is not just about feeling good about our national carrier—in times of trouble our national carrier plays a key strategic role. In an international emergency, in a time of war, a national carrier is required to freight resources and people around the country and around the world. Qantas also operates Qantas Defence Services, which conducts work for the RAAF. If Qantas is allowed to wither, who will meet these strategic needs?

I pay tribute to the 35,000 employees of the Qantas Group. At the forefront of the fight against the strategy of Qantas management have been the Qantas pilots, to whom millions of Australians have literally entrusted their lives. The Australian and International Pilots Association sees Qantas management strategy as a race to the bottom when it comes to service and safety. On 8 November last year, QF32 experienced a serious malfunction with the explosion of an engine on an A380 aircraft. In the wrong hands, that plane could have crashed. But it did not, in large part because the Qantas flight crew had been trained to exemplary world-class standards and knew how to cope with such a terrifying reality. I am deeply concerned that what is being pursued may well cause training levels to fall and that as a result safety standards in the Qantas Group may fall as well. AIPA pilots and the licensed aircraft engineers are not fighting for themselves; they are fighting for the Australian public. That is why I am deeply concerned about any action Qantas management may be considering taking against pilots who speak out in the public interest.

A lot of claims have been made about the financial state of Qantas international but given the information I have presented tonight, which has come from within the Qantas Group, I believe these claims by management are crying out for further serious forensic investigation. Qantas should not be allowed to face death by a thousand cuts—job cuts, route cuts, quality cuts, engineering cuts, wage cuts. None of this is acceptable and it must all be resisted for the sake of the pilots, the crews, the passengers and ultimately the future of our national carrier.

 

[terryc]

I wouldn't call that "losing your job." And hey, who wouldn't like a 30% payrise? Just got greedy if you ask me.

I don't remember the full details, just that a whole pile of volunteer community workers suddenly left Australia as a result. From what I remember, it wasn't as simple as that. Ansett management wasn't any better than Qantas management IMO.

Any case, someone was ear bashing on the weekend with claims that Qantas pilots earn >$500K pa. Seemed a case of envy to me. My 2c is that pilots might have been paid a lot, but they sacrificed a lot to get that. I've had IT contracts that required me to spend days away and no frigging way are they ever worth the money.

In any case, I hope it works out for Shaggy and others. Xenophon isn't the first to point this out, but my 2c is that neither party will do SFA about it. Doing so might cut into the donations to their party.

 

[DieselTuner2]

It will be a sad day for all Aussies if they succeed in moving Qantas overseas.

I for one, and more than likely 90% of all others will never fly Qantas again if they manage to do it.

The problem is the corporates dont care. we have what 25million people in the country?
They see Asia as a whole has more than 2billion?

Profit is all they live for.

 

[Old.Tony]

If the claims by Xenophon are accurate, it's not only Qantas that you should refuse to fly on, it's Jetstar as well.

Fly Virgin instead. Or just bloody drive there.

 

[sparra04]

i work for a multinational company
they dont give a shit about the worker
my union(awu) and i are going to fair work tribunal tomorrow
over 48 hrs annual leave they owe me and refuse to pay
trivial shit i know but we HAVE TO stand up and protect our rights
good on the qantas workers
Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service
we need to keep it in oz
i would happily pay a bit more for air travel to protect aussie jobs

 

[Jason]

QANTAS propping up Jetstar has been well known for a while.

I wonder how members of our defence force get by spending 3 to 6 months (even up to 9 months and longer) of the year away from their families for their 50 or 60 grand?

 

[Jason]

i work for a multinational company
they dont give a shit about the worker
my union(awu) and i are going to fair work tribunal tomorrow
over 48 hrs annual leave they owe me and refuse to pay
trivial shit i know but we HAVE TO stand up and protect our rights
good on the qantas workers
Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service
we need to keep it in oz
i would happily pay a bit more for air travel to protect aussie jobs

You would be the exception to the rule.

The vast majority of consumers follow the dollar unfortunately, hence saving a few cents on an item at the checkout brings down large aussie owned companies in the long run.

 

[Krankin]

QANTAS propping up Jetstar has been well known for a while.

I wonder how members of our defence force get by spending 3 to 6 months (even up to 9 months and longer) of the year away from their families for their 50 or 60 grand?

there's shitloads of workers in shithole jobs working 12 months every year on less than that in this country together with having to do o/t everyday and some weekends with no pay for it.

 

[Jason]

Thats my point.

 

[joshman]

Eh, I hate jets far service, and have never liked QANTAS much either. Always flown VirginBlue, always will.

 

[Krankin]

Thats my point.

and precisely why I'm in the union