In what can only be described as controlled fury, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Anthony Albanese, has cast doubts on the maturity, sincerity and behaviour of Qantas Group CEO Alan Joyce following his announcement just before 5 pm that he was grounding its entire domestic and international operations until the pilot, licensed engineer and ground staff unions withdraw their legitimate court sanctioned industrial campaigns and pay and condition claims.
Albanese said the government has not learned of the Qantas grounding until after 2 pm this afternoon, less than three hours before the action was announced just before 5 pm eastern time.
“This action is quite extraordinary” the Minister said.
“At no stage in any of the discussions the government has had with Qantas did it indicate that it wanted the government to intervene at Fair Work Australia to resolve the issues, and it did not at any stage mention that it was contemplating these groundings,” he said.
“I have real concerns about these actions, and I have spoken to Mr Joyce since the announcement to make my concerns known, and he has told me that the decision was taken at a board meeting this morning and that it was a fait accompli.
“I find it extraordinary that a board meeting should have suddenly decided on this course of action this morning less than a day after it held an annual general meeting.
“There has to be planning involved in this. I leave it to those who know how aviation operates to ponder the timing of this.”
Minister Albanese said the disputes between Qantas and its pilots, licensed engineers and ground staff were capable of being resolved by mature adults who recognised a shared interest in arriving at solutions that were in the longer term interests of the company and its employees.
“I made it very clear to Mr Joyce that I was very disturbed that we had conducted a number of discussions with Qantas during which no reference had been made to the possibility of such action being taken by the airline,” he said.
Albanese also made it clear that he had been in close consultation with the CEO of Virgin Australia, John Borghetti, following his conversation with Alan Joyce and that Virgin Australia had undertook to make every effort to step into the breach caused by the Qantas groundings with additional capacity.
While the Minister was expressing his lack of confidence in the Qantas board and Alan Joyce, the Vice President of the Qantas pilot union, Richard Woodward, said he knew that Qantas had booked thousands of hotel rooms world wide some weeks ago in advance of its action to ground all of it international and domestic flights and had been negotiating replacement flights with Cathay Pacific up to several months ago.
Woodward said the Qantas action was in his opinion premeditated and well planned, and queried Joyce’s stability, describing his performance this afternoon as ‘bordering on the maniacal.”
Passengers are reporting that they had been on boarded flights ready to depart with no inkling of the grounding decision, saying that the pilots and flight attendants were also completely unaware of the action until they were told to empty the jets.
On returning to the terminals they were handed letters from Qantas management setting out the situation and the arrangements that would allow them to claim hotel expenses, change bookings to other airline or receive refunds.
Fair Work Australia is holding an urgent hearing into the dispute in Melbourne late this evening on the application of the federal government which has asked the tribunal to seek an immediate suspension of all industrial action by all parties.
The Qantas action severely embarrassed the Australian Government at the Commonwealth Heads of Governments Meeting or CHOGM in Perth, potentially causing delays to many delegates and their entourages and the extension at short notice of the special security arrangements.
Earlier tonight Dick Smith told ABC News that he would have shut down Qantas three years ago. Not a word from such an astute and patriotic businessman about solving the Qantas competitive issues by actually matching the route structure to demand, or attacking the biggest cost impost, fuel, with timely investments in fuel efficient jets, or having competitive product at the premium level where most passengers don’t actually pay for their fare, the company does.
With good management, and a slightly lower exchange rate, Qantas would be highly competitive. This defeatist and inept management has ruined our national carrier, and has been inexcusably incompetent.
Later this evening Tony Sheldon, the national secretary of the TWU added to allegations made earlier by pilot union vice president Richard Woodward that today’s groundings had been planned long in advance.
These are allegations that Qantas needs to address, or risk serious damage to its insistence that it has been negotiating in good faith for many months with the parties.
Just before the late night hearing of the FWA application the Prime Minister Julia Gillard avoided numerous opportunities to add to Minister Alabanese’s commentary on how Qantas notified the government of its actions which she said had drastically escalated the industrial situation and brought it to a stage where it could have an impact on the national economy.
The Prime Minister, speaking at the CHOGM conference in Perth, said 17 heads of state and their parties had been booked to leave on Qantas flights from tomorrow, and were making their own arrangements to book on other airlines with Australian support if required.
18 Comments
A desperate act by a desperate CEO and an incompetent board with no airline expertise.
At least now we know which side has been “unreasonable” during the negotiations with the unions.
Will the government show some leadership, or will they stuff this up as well…?
The government could buy back the airline overnight and get it’s cash back the next day with the amount of cash on the Qantas balance sheet.
Hopefully the government will show some backbone and put Joyce and co. in their place (which if there’s any justice would be the dole queue). This will be a fair test of the ALP’s FairWork system as well. If it can’t give the Qantas board a well deserved belt in these circumstances, it will have shown itself to be nothing more than WorkChoices Lite, in my opinion.
Also, earlier this week on Crikey, Keane had an article (http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/10/27/who-killed-economic-reform-maybe-we-all-did/) that, among other things, showed that 44% of people though that the privatisation of Qantas was a bad thing vs 23% who thought it was good. Given the behaviour of Joyce and co. over the past few days (crying poor to unions and FWA, voting themselves massive pay rises, throwing the toys out of the pram today, passengers be damned!), I can only see that gap increasing. Should also give further impetus to Xenophon’s efforts to improve aviation in Australia.
As for the passenger market, Virgin must be thinking that all it’s Christmases have come at once. And suddenly going with Tiger doesn’t seem like such a punt after all. Is Qantas taking them off life support?
Look the Goverment got rid of Qantas because they could not afford to “Refinance” it every year, so forget your rescue plans by taxpayers, I remember the days when I could recline across four seats in economy all the way to LHR because only homesick expat “Poms” and in reverse their “Reations” (which by the way paid lesser fares because of competion out of UK) filled the seats!( empty planes courtesy of Australian taxpayers), !
Ben, I agree that the management is incompetent but is this an example of Joyce’s incompetence or are the unions right that is it a carefully planned strategy bust the unions and /or kill the Australian business and give him an excuse to move the whole business offshore?
That Albanese wasn’t advised is no surprise. He’s been anti- the whole industry for years and is hardly an airline go-to man. But you can’t tell me Gillard et al knew nothing about this beforehand, particularly if it’s true that thousands of hotel rooms had been booked months ago. More likely, Gillard was warned a shutdown would happen if no progress was made on an agreement, but the government never thought it would get to this. Her avoidance of adding to Albanese’s comments says it all. I guess since the current government is the unions, QF decided to dump the problem in their lap. Ouch!
There are none so blind as those who cannot see, the writing was on the wall, hopefully Australian pilots will find employment on CX, SQ, BA, etc, but not if those adopt the same “our nationals only” that Australian pilots, and engineers have insisted on in Australia, as for TWU for years you have been sneered upon by the Qantas elite until they sought your support, good bye fools!
I don’t know who this “Nong” is, who writes about “laying across four seats” on Qantas aircraft, but he obviously hasn’t flown with Qantas for the last 20 years. I fly these aircraft, and we fly around absolutely full 99% of the time, and leave staff passengers behind, due to no seats available, on a regular basis!!! Qantas also has expensive air fares compared to everyone else, so how the hell can Long-Haul be losing money? Either by really poor yield management, or by “Cooking the books” The later is the truth!! A friend of mine just booked with Qantas to fly from Germany to Australia, with domestic flights included, and back to Germany, with ONE sector with Jetstar. When I called Qantas to make an enquiry for him, I was advised that they couldn’t help me, because the booking was a Jetstar booking. I wonder if they stole the entire fair, for the $59 fair on Jetstar. It’s a bit ironic considering Qantas short used to operate that sector, until they took it off us and gave it to Jetstar. Also please keep firmly in your mind, the only thing Qantas Pilots have done, is to wear a red tie, and make very positive announcements asking our customers to visit our website http://www.qantaspilots.com for more information. Now we are locked out of our jobs!! Qantas has been planning this shut-down for quite some time and we can prove this.
If it can be shown that Joyce and the board booked these hotel rooms in advance and/or tried to schedule Cathay to take up slack then he has failed a prime requirement of a board member of a public company which is full disclosure of things which might affect the profitability of the Airline. ASIC should audit him now.
Minister Albanese is basically calling Joyce a liar. Seems nobody trusts anything that Joyce says
About time Albanese grew a set and put the boot in where it is deserved. The lowest most cynical act I have seen in 33 years of flying and fixing. A day after the AGM and he wakes up and grounds the works. Bulldust.
This should be a warning to unions around the world, the ultimate control of a business is not in the hands of a union. The only thing the union is after is more money and better working conditions for their staff, in a time when businesses are struggling to keep their heads above water. Qantas, like many other companies are trying to be the best and most efficient in their industry whilst their staff are taking industrial action, ultimately the unions will cripple the business and everyone will be out of a job.
If you are not happy with the job you do then the best way to protest is to leave the company and work for someone else for better money. Surely this is obvious, what does industrial action achieve for anyone? Nothing!
@James Ward
“Surely this is obvious, what does industrial action achieve for anyone? Nothing!”
Better wages, job security, grievance procedures, safety, better work practices, decent leave, accountability are a few of the things.
Ever wondered why Australians are relatively well paid while Americans for the most part (except on US sitcoms) get barely a living wage? Their great economy may – or may not! – be a thing of wonder, but if it means most people’s lives are hand-to-mouth it’s all a bit academic.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=184NTV2CE_c&feature=fvwrel
What Have The Unions Ever Done For Us?
@bob the builder I do agree in part, better working conditions and pay etc are very nice, I’m sure if Qantas could afford to pay people a lot more then they would, but purely because of your comment about American wages, the airline industry is a cut throat business, and so to stay a successful airline they have to make changes and be more efficient. Compare this to a small business, if an employer has a handful of employees and they all walked out over pay and conditions, one of two things would happen, the business would fail, or the owner would employ new staff, as I said, unions should not be able to hold a company to ransom, if staff don’t like what they are offered they need to move on, Qantas will soon give better pay/working conditions when they realise they can’t attract the best staff
So James,
You just keep getting screwed by an avaricious employer until you leave, then see someone else take the job you worked at so hard for years at a higher pay rate. So where does this one way street leave the employee – as a simple wages slave?
Have a look at South West Airlines – adversarial or joint interest in joint benefit?
Wildsky, I agree with you completely, I’m not against unions, I actually think they do a great job in helping staff and management communicate and run a very smooth business, as in your example of southwest airlines, they clearly have it right, because everyone has an important role in making the business successful. What I don’t agree with is industrial action, when a union starts any industrial action it drives a wedge right down the middle of this relationship, can Qantas recover from this huge divide in their working relationship? The union has the right to strike, and so Qantas should have the right to shut down their operations as they have. I don’t know how Qantas pay and conditions compare with other airlines, are they much worse? If so then they clearly won’t succeed as an airline, if they are inline with other airlines, then does the union have a case? I can’t answer that, but I do know that industrial action doesnt really benefit anyone