Job Security for Qantas Workers

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Unions welcome the resumption of Qantas flights and will now approach negotiations with the airline’s management determined to stand up for job security, and keeping good jobs in Australia.

Union members around the country pulled out all the stops to get the flights back to normal as soon as possible after Alan Joyce's decision to ground the entire Qantas fleet.

Unions will urgently seek to restart talks with Qantas management in a spirit of conciliation following Fair Work Australia’s order that the airline return to the negotiating table.

Mr Lawrence said the key issues for negotiation were job security and Qantas’ plans to offshore major parts of its operations.

“We welcome Alan Joyce’s announcement that all flights will resume within 24 hours, but it should never have come to this,” Mr Lawrence said.

“For two days, Qantas has held the Australian public to ransom. There were plenty of choices available to Qantas, but grounding its airlines was not necessary.

“Tens of thousands of people have had their travel plans disrupted, and the economic loss caused by Mr Joyce’s singlehanded action has been immense. The damage to Qantas’ and Australia’s reputation is immeasurable.

“In its decision, Fair Work Australia attributed the entire reason for its intervention to the potential damage to the economy and industry caused by the actions of Qantas management.

“The intervention to prevent Qantas from locking out its workers and forcing it back to the negotiating table is welcome.

“For 15 months, unions representing engineers, pilots, baggage handlers and ramp crews, and catering staff have been standing up for this great company to ensure it remains a proud Australian icon.

“This is about job security, and keeping good jobs in Australia – that’s what unions are fighting for.

“Unions genuinely want to reach agreement, and we expect Qantas management to take a reasonable approach to negotiations, as opposed to its behaviour until now.”

What can you do?
Your help will be crucial in making sure that Australia's national airline negotiates in good faith with its workforce. There are a couple of ways you can support Qantas workers:

Send an email to Qantas CEO, Alan Joyce, calling on him to approach negotiations in good faith.
Sign in and leave your message of solidarity with Qantas workers or to leave your concerns about the actions of Mr Joyce.
Visit the Qantas Facebook page and let them know you want Mr Joyce to bargain in good faith with Qantas workers. This is about job security and keeping good jobs in Australia
On Twitter? Let Qantas know you want workers to have job security and to keep good jobs in Australia

Read what some of the Qantas unions are saying about Mr Joyce's decision.
Australian Workers Union
Transport Workers Union
Australian & International Pilots Association
Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association
Australian Services Union
Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union
Communications Electrical Plumbing Union

What people are saying?
These are only a sample of a variety of comments from people frustrated about Mr Joyce's decision to ground the entire Qantas fleet.

Michael says "Alan Joyce goes on about unions extreme claims, but the elephant in the room is his extreme pay rises while the shareprice keeps on sinking"

Deidre says "Shame on qantas management. They argue they are in such a tough market that they can pat the CEO an extra 2 million Just greed."

Comments

steve lawley at 30/10/2011 6:56:50 PM

This is so important that Alan Joyce return to the negotiating table. Instead of insisting this was the only course of action, which is not the case, he can end the grounding and get an outcome with the unions. We can't let Mr Joyce keep up this unwarranted industrial action against his staff.
Ying Tsai at 31/10/2011 9:04:31 AM

When unions are talking on the news, they never mentioned Alan Joyce has called the transport minister to inform: he will ground the flights within 3 hours and the government did nothing within 3 hours on Saturday last week.

In my working life, I have never seen a company can guarantee job security because who knows how the business is going to happen in next second. Remember the flood in Queensland this year? How many companies survived?

I read 4 different copies of newspaper this morning, one important message is about the meeting between unions and Qantas on Friday last week. If unions keep having strikes longer than a year, half of Qantas operations can be shut down. I am not sure if unions ever mentioned to those Qantas employees.

If Qantas does shut down, everyone loses the job. Who is going to pay employee's home loan or who is going to raise employee's kids? If those unions members are going to pay Qantas employees' home loan or help raise kids, that will be great.

I am from Asia and I am grateful to live in Australia now because I have never had public holiday pay before and people only get 7 days annul leave when they work more then 1 years. But I have a better life in Australia and I appreciate what I have now. (My two younger brothers are engineers in my country. They work 12 hours per shift and no penalty pay, how great to work in Australia?)

I do believe Alan Joyce got support from board members before he had the announcement. Most people forgot board members are Australians, but unions never blame board members. They only blame Alan Joyce because he is not Australian (it is a disgraceful thing to do). However, Alan Joyce needs to work on shareholders' interest as well. If unions don't like what he does, just have enough money to buy Qantas shares to get rid off Alan Joyce.

I am also curious the salary of executives of those 3 unions.
Ian F at 31/10/2011 11:57:54 AM

Maybe Ying you need to get the real facts and not just repeat Qantas misinformation.

It was Qantas that was on strike, no workers were on strike. And Alan Joyce was the person that made the decision to ground the fleet. He might have told his board but he made the decision so it was he who could've ended the whole mess and gone back and negotiated in good faith with his workers. He didn't bother to tell the ASX or his shareholders; and three hours notice to the government is a ridiculously short amount of time in order to respond to the huge disruption Joyce's grounding of Qantas caused. Plus it's coming out that he had been planning this kind of thing since mid-October.

Ying it's great that you're here. If you think it's great working in Australia because of the conditions, well friend you should know it was the unions that got those conditions. So if you don't like that unions are fighting for better pay and conditions for their members perhaps you'd like to give up all the things the unions have done for Australian workers like holiday pay, leave loading, sick leave, long service leave, paid parental leave, overtime payments and weekends.

All Alan Joyce had to do was negotiate with workers in good faith. He choose instead to jeopardise Qantas, massively disrupt tourists and business people, and held the Australian economy to ransom because he didn't want to negotiate with workers. He is an industrial terrorist.

The decision by Fair Work Australia, if you bother to read it Ying, makes extremely clear that the actions of Qantas and its reckless endangerment of the economy resulted in the decision to terminate the action by Qantas. It now forces everyone, including Qantas, to negotiate.

Maybe now Joyce will sit down like an adult and negotiate a fair outcome with his workers and their representatives.

Get behind the workers Ying - Alan Joyce shows he has no interest in looking after Australian jobs when he wants to off-shore them.