As a matter of opinion, there seems to be an element of hysteria in the Qantas management threats this morning to fire ‘innocent bystanders’ in the industrial disputes between the airline and its pilots, licensed engineers and ground handling staff.
The parallel with hostage taking is remarkable. Following on so far unsubstantiated death threat claims, now under police investigation, the airline is lashing out with threats to harm employees not involved in the dispute in what might reasonably be seen as a brain fade or dummy spit by Qantas CEO Alan Joyce.
The stance by Joyce also needs to be considered in the context of industrial law.
Joyce is reported as threatening such dismissals if the unions don’t call off their campaigns.
However these campaigns comprise protected industrial action granted under strict conditions by Fair Work Australia after the unions involved in the dispute met the various tests of having attempted to resolve their differences with Qantas in good faith.
In an interview on ABC News 24 this morning the transport minister Anthony Albanese, agreed that the government could use its powers under the Fair Work Act to intervene and force a resolution of the differences between the parties if the national interest was affected.
However yesterday Virgin Australia detailed how the loss of capacity claimed by Qantas, of 88,000 seats per month, had been offset by its adding 124,000 available seats over the same period.
It also confirmed that it was negotiating with alliance partners Etihad and Air NZ for them to take over some of its long haul lift in order to redeploy more of its international 737 and 777 capacity on domestic routes.
In the circumstances this makes it clear that while Qantas is being harmed by the disputes the national interest has survived unscathed.
While on the topic of the national interest, it might be useful for the government and opposition to ask how the Qantas plan to halve its capacity on the kangaroo routes to London from early next year is in the national interest, particularly when Qantas is giving that capacity away to British Airways in order to divert resources into a minority owned Singapore flag carrier venture called Red Quitter or some similar nonsense with jets that won’t even have the range to fly non-stop to SE Australia.
In short, there are some serious questions to ask about what Alan Joyce and chairman Leigh Clifford are really on about in their illogical claims to be gutting Qantas in order to make it stronger by turning to minority Asian controlled entities subject to what appear to uncertain negotiations with Singapore or Malaysia as the alternative solution to its aversion to being Australian.
It can be argued that Qantas should be free to destroy what’s left of its international operations as it sees fit. It did make a supreme effort to do this with the failed private equity buyout of 2007, and its fleet, product and network decisions have been mediocre and harmful in this writer’s opinion and the opinion of others.
But is there a government role in saving Qantas from itself, or is it all too late now that it is down to a mere 18% of international long haul lift out of Australia anyhow.
Qantas is seriously and purposefully irrelevant to international tourism. Where exactly is the national interest in facilitating its Asian adventures? This is not a criticism of Asian adventures or the franchising of the Jetstar brand per se, but comes with significant safety and industrial equity questions with the added baggage of rotating exhausted Asia based flight attendants through Jetstar domestic services at the end of 20 hour shifts.
There are surely questions of national importance in moves that would import external safety and training standards onto domestic sectors.
Back on matters strictly industrial, whatever the failings of the various union cases, a management that has been unable to properly maintain its aircraft since at least 2007 without compulsory overtime isn’t managing efficiently. Nor is it efficient management to allow industrial negotiations to drift on for so long that Fair Work Australia actually permits the unions to launch campaigns of approved court protected industrial action.
At the end of the day more Australians may start asking, do we really need Qantas? Is this company’s interests really our interests? Is it special, or has it descended to just being a sham? Has it made a nonsense of the Qantas Sale Act, and of equal importance, does all of this make a case for actually abolishing that act completely?
8 Comments
Ben, did AJ watch Pulp Fiction last night….? his latest rant is straight from the Cafe robbery scene..! ( of course with out the profanities)…..
I haven’t time to rifle through my Fair Work Act but I’m guessing that dismissing people in those circumstances would fall outside the reasons prescribed in s385 and – in short – be unfair. I don’t know who’s advising Joyce but this stuff is really dumb.
Having just read the associated article with Joyce’s claims of collateral damage, in my opinion, we are seeing Joyce at the the height of his incompetence.
Having orchestrated and inflamed the current IR ‘perfect storm’ by his divisive human resources strategies he now seems completely clueless as to how to extricate his company from this morass. His media statements seem more unhinged by the day.
For example, consider his claim that short haul pilots’ “not even represented by the union (AIPA)” jobs are being put at risk by the action of the long haul pilots. As I understand it (and please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong), the vast majority of Qantas short haul pilots are indeed represented by the AIPA (as are the vast majority of the long haul pilots).
Considering that a significant percentage of 737 flying that these short haul pilots used to fly has now been handed across to the “not Qantas but is Qantas” entity, Jetconnect (trans-Tasman) I would think those pilots are well aware of what the real threat to their jobs is. Also consider the newly acquired Network Aviation in WA (and Alan Joyce’s immediate commitment to rapidly grow yet another outsourced entity). I think, if I was a WA based Qantas short haul pilot, I would be none too optimistic about what that venture would be doing for my career.
It seems also that Joyce has completely underestimated John Borghetti’s abilities, in general but also specifically in being able to quickly add extra capacity to the Australian domestic market. Up till now Joyce seems to have been quite content to massively inconvenience the travelling public to encourage anti-union sentiment in order to rationalise his offshoring agenda (safe in the knowledge that once he has smashed down his own staff he can pick up where he left off with no loss of market share). I would suggest he is wiping a lot of egg off his face this morning.
Qantas is in free fall, having gone from an airline that only a few years ago made a $1.4 billion profit. Conversely, Virgin (also with a heavily unionised workforce) seems to be making smart moves (people, equipment, alliances etc) and thus, even coming from a weak financial starting point it seems pointed on a far sounder trajectory.
Alan Joyce is quite correct that Qantas jobs are at risk at the moment.
All of them.
From him.
Ben,
Given your actions in reporting more than just QFs media releases, including both sides of the story, not only are you not on their Christmas card list, but I would exercise all due care when retrieving your mail.
Baravo Zulu
Ben,
I’ve had to reset my Crikey password three times since 09:20 this morning.
Looks like someone has hit a raw nerve…..
When a business consistently loses money, and sees industrial action sending it further down the tube, employees are inevitably impacted. There’s nothing hysterical about this – it’s business 101 but you construe it as having a “parallel with hostage taking”. Your implication that a new QF venture in Asia would have the “added baggage of rotating exhausted Asia based flight attendants through Jetstar domestic services at the end of 20 hour shifts.” is a fact-free supposition about an entity that hasn’t been set up yet. Other language in your article (eg. QF being “free to destroy what’s left of its international operations” and a reference to the new venture as the “Red Quitter”) represents hysteria too, but it’s yours, not theirs.
Lastly, a question: you continually claim that QF is not an ‘end-of-line’ carrier, and should be plying secondary European destinations with flights. If there was a commercial advantage in this, how come European carriers don’t serve Australian markets? With their huge base of well-heeled travellers, surely an Air France, KLM or Lufthansa would have an even more compelling business case to serve Australian markets by now. Contrary to your own views, they’ve had to cede the market to the SQs and Emirates of this world who have advantages they can’t duplicate – not the least of which is their geographical location and favourable economics. I’m no Qantas fanboi and think the international part of the group has been poorly run, but I am getting weary of one-sided journalism that seems to think Qantas is ‘different’ to other businesses, and should invest in areas that they (and most others) long ago realised were not viable. And let up on the hysteria – Qantas is a business: no cash, no dash.
Thanks Peteyboy, you put it far more eloquently than I could, especially the bit about which side is hysterical, if I am “laid off” it will be because there is no longer any work for me, I won’t look on myself as being “fired”, and as for “hostage taking” oh c’mon! this is on a par with the rants of Andrew Bolt.
At the top right corner of this page there appears the Ansett logo, I suggest the unions take a long hard look at it whilst planning their next move.