Qantas Has Grounded Its Entire Fleet

[Mr Lee]

Qantas has grounded its entire domestic and international fleets indefinitely and announced the lockout of all employees covered by the agreements that are currently in dispute.Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce said the groundings would take place immediately and announced the lockout will begin at 8pm AEDT on Monday.'We are locking out until the unions withdraw their extreme claim and reach agreement with us,' Mr Joyce told a press conference on Saturday.Mr Joyce said his hand had been tipped by the impossible demands of the three unions.'They are trashing our strategy and our brand,' he said.'They are deliberately destabilising the company and there is no end in sight.'If the industrial action continued, Qantas would have no choice but to shut down its business 'part by part', the chief executive said. More

[Candyman]

I have a couple of friends that work for Qantas, and their opinions are that this whole schamoozle is caused purely and simply by Qantas's greed ! From all accounts, they want to outsource, all major jobs to overseas countries where the rates of pay are so much less than here in Australia ! So much for patriotism of the flagship of the Australian Airways ! Upper management is not adverse to voting themselves hefty pay rises, but it balks at paying the employees there fair and just rewards for their work.This decision to shut down an entire airline is based purely on GREED & PROFITS, at the expense of the workers that make the profits for them in the first place !No wonder there are so many "Wall Street style" protests around the world ! At this rate I can see these protests escalating very rapidly !I think this heavy handed decision by Qantas, will have far reaching and very detrimental affects to their business, in very short order ! The Gestapo is alive and well in Qantas management !

[Mr Lee]

While I totally agree with you that there is way too much corporate greed in the world, and that CEO and upper management keep voting themselves huge pay raises and bonuses which seem totally unreasonable, myself having run a few smaller corporations, I find the employees often have no idea what is involved with being an owner or part of the management of a company, and how many countless hours had to be put in to build a company to where it may be now. I know little about Qantas, so I cannot comment on them directly, but I do know that in a down economy with rising costs of fuel and items related to running a business going up, such as electric, insurance, internet, phone service, water, paper products, printing costs, and so on and so on, often employees do not understand that everyone may have to be cutting back and not expect as much as in previous years. Also when an employee clocks out at the end of a shift, their work time ends, yet upper management is often on call 24 hours a day, and often seven days a week, so while not actually on the clock, they are often called at all hours of the day and night to solve issues that occur. And to top all this off, I have to wonder what the heck does it matter when we all get pay raises, when they are only offset by the cost of items going up, so while pay raises are definitely feel good, if there were only pay raises to offset non labor related costs going up on items, then I believe items would stay around the same price, since I believe that labor is one of the main items that increase the cost of an item.

[Jake]

Often times, the big executives CEO's and CFO's are sleeping with the fat cat politicians. They protecteach other by bailing them out with tax payers hard earned money. And when the senior executivesare caught, they are fired or resigned with gifts of ungodly amount of severance/retirement package. I feel sorry for these guys -- they're crying all the way to their luxury yachts and forced to drink inferiorchampagne that cost only 50 bucks, instead of the usual 100 bucks a bottle. As shown in another post -- we all "got elked" again........

[Jollygoodfellow]

There's a bit more to the story as the workers have been staging rolling stoppages, disrupting travel and customers,as the CEO said it can not drag out for another year. Last week I think it was they showed the workers protesting at the airport and those passengers at the airports general opinion was get back to work ,lazy bastards.When ever there is a labor goverment in place in Australia there are strikes after strikes,unions do nothing more than fight for their own existence and greed,the worker really does not come in to it.I doubt if Qantas will survive another year,there have been other problems and the media jump on it straight away over minor things that happen to any aircraft or aviation company.Personally I would not fly with them in the past 4 months if I needed a flight as the risk of strikes, delays or as now grounding has been too high. Just to add,I think this paves the way for the government to step in to solve the dispute,this is not good for the Australian economy and tourist sectors.

Edited October 29, 2011 by Bossman
added wee bit

[sjp52]

To shut down and start back up operations is a big loss for the company. They will never get back their losses. I for one would love to see the owner get fined for shutting down operations as they are in a important service for the public. Now if the airlines can show that they were not making much money than that is a different story. As for some of the employees being A holes, They should be dealt with separately. The government should be involved at this point rather than the airlines taking such drastic measures.

[Dave Hounddriver]

When ever there is a labor goverment in place in Australia there are strikes after strikes,unions do nothing more than fight for their own existence and greed,the worker really does not come in to it.

I have to smile when I read stuff like this. There are really only 3 types of ways to earn a living, independent entrepreneurship, being the boss, or being the worker. By far most of us are (were) workers. Every time I read about one worker bashing another worker because the 'unions are greedy' I have to ask them: Even if you don't benefit directly from being in that union, do you honestly believe you would get the wage you do if the unions had not raised the standards for the industry pay scale?

[Bundy]

I have to agree with Dick Smith on this one. Last night he stated that he could not blame Qantas as they are a business like any other trying to make money, He could not blame the unions as they are simply doing what they are supposed to do and that is to protect the Australian workers. He did lay the blame squarely at the feet of our wonderful government who chose to implement an "open skies"policy for Australia some 3 years ago. As Qantas is our only international carrier, they have been forced to compete dollar for dollar with asian airlines because of this government ruling. Obviously if Qantas are paying their staff in Australian dollars whilst the others are paying their staff in Ringit, Baht , Singapore dollar or whatever, then how can Qantas compete? The answer is to move Qantas to Asia and pay their staff the same wages as the other airlines. Asked what he would do if he was CEO of Qantas, Dick said straight out " I would have closed down all Qantas international operations 3 years ago"

[Jollygoodfellow]

When ever there is a labor goverment in place in Australia there are strikes after strikes,unions do nothing more than fight for their own existence and greed,the worker really does not come in to it.

I have to smile when I read stuff like this. There are really only 3 types of ways to earn a living, independent entrepreneurship, being the boss, or being the worker. By far most of us are (were) workers. Every time I read about one worker bashing another worker because the 'unions are greedy' I have to ask them: Even if you don't benefit directly from being in that union, do you honestly believe you would get the wage you do if the unions had not raised the standards for the industry pay scale?

I smile when I read stuff like above too :cheersty: