I'm All Right Jack is a 1959 British comedy film directed and produced by John and Roy Boulting from a script by Frank Harvey, John Boulting and Alan Hackney, based on the novel Private Life by Hackney. The film is a sequel to the Boulting's 1956 film Private's Progress, and Ian Carmichael, Dennis Price, Richard Attenborough, Terry-Thomas, and Miles Malleson all reprise their characters from the earlier film. Peter Sellers played one of his best-known roles, as the trade union shop steward Fred Kite, and won a Best Actor Award from the British Academy. The rest of the cast included many well-known British comedy actors of the time.

The film is a satire on British industrial life in the 1950s. The trade unions, workers, and bosses are all seen to be incompetent or corrupt to varying degrees. The film is one of a number of satires made by the Boulting Brothers between 1956 and 1963.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%27m_All_Right_Jack

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has defended his unprecedented decision to ground the airline's entire fleet, as the backlash from stranded passengers and sidelined workers continues to grow.

The airline announced the grounding of all domestic and international flights on Saturday in response to a protracted industrial dispute with its employees.

Hopes for an early return to the air rest with an industrial tribunal hearing at Fair Work Australia (FWA) this afternoon, with the Government calling for an end to the conflict between the airline and its unions.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-30/joyce-defends-qantas-grounding/3608780?WT.svl=news0

Sounds like a case of if Joyce can't have his Hitlerian ways one hundred per cent, no-one can have anything...

Australian International Pilots Association (AIPA) vice-president Captain Richard Woodward said work stoppages were not in their plans.

"Pilots have made it clear from the start that we would not take industrial action that disrupts passengers. We have stuck to that to this day," he said.

"Alan Joyce, on the other hand, has opted to disrupt passengers in the most devastating way possible.

"Pilots have not been on strike and we are not seeking anything that would damage profitability."

Mr Woodward described Qantas's action as "a cynical act of insanity".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-15510525

see toon at top...

The pilots union has produced an email which it says proves Qantas was planning to ground its fleet days before the airline claims to have made the decision.

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce says he only decided to take the unprecedented move on Saturday morning, after unions ramped up their industrial rhetoric in the wake of the airline's AGM on Friday.

But the Australian International Pilots Association (AIPA) has obtained an email apparently sent by Jetstar CEO Bruce Buchanan last night advising his staff of the actions being taken by Qantas.

The date on the memo was Wednesday October 26 and is addressed to team leaders saying: "By now you may be aware Qantas has announced a precautionary grounding of its fleet from 5pm Saturday", and warned of the Monday lockout.

AIPA vice-president Captain Richard Woodward says the date on the email reveals the extent of the airline's "calculated" plans to freeze operations.

"It is dated Wednesday 26th of October - so this has been planned and orchestrated," he said.

"You don't stop an airline overnight.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-30/pilots-say-email-proves-qantas-made-calculated-move/3609006

At the very pointy end of those huge Qantas flagships, the Airbus A380s, the senior captain has a lot of training, experience and responsibility. He is also earning a lot of money - up to just under $540,000 a year - a healthy 40 per cent premium over the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard's $386,000 salary and allowances.

This is one reason why Qantas International is losing $200 million a year and will never, ever, make a profit again under its present cost structure. The international operations are being subsidised by the domestic carrier Jetstar, the frequent flyer program and freight operations.

Why bother keeping Qantas International going when it is no longer a viable business? The international airline is burdened by rigid, outdated industrial relations practices and imperial legacies it can no longer afford. It is not built to survive long-term.

I'm not going to defend the blunderbuss tactics deployed by management, but the big question - why should Qantas run a loss-making international operation indefinitely? - needs to be addressed by the long-haul pilots and their representatives at the Australian International Pilots Association.

This question also needs to be addressed by Tony Sheldon, one of the architects of the union strategy of bleeding Qantas into submission with erratic work stoppages spread over months. Sheldon is national secretary of the Transport Workers Union and, as pointed out a week ago, is running for the presidency of the Labor Party.

It says a great deal that Sheldon thinks bringing the national flag-carrier to its knees is a credential he can use to become president of the ALP. This is not a cynical observation given the numerous deals made by a union-dominated federal government.

The context for the Qantas dispute is the Gillard government's transformation of industrial relations. Passing the Fair Work Act 2009 and setting up Fair Work Australia to replace the Industrial Relations Commission has re-empowered the unions. As well, of the 11 Fair Work Australia commissioners appointed by the Gillard government, nine are former union officials or union advocates. The other two are career bureaucrats.

Another big problem for Qantas is its main competitor, Virgin. A myth has developed that Virgin is a low-cost carrier and less unionised. Not true. It is just as unionised, but has more flexible workplace practices. The real gap between the carriers is international services, where Qantas is vastly bigger and has heavier costs.

Virgin's domestic pilots are paid only 4 per cent less than Qantas pilots. Its ground staff are paid only $1 an hour less than Qantas staff. Virgin has made job-security agreements Qantas is refusing to grant its workers. Virgin even pays its engineers more than Qantas does. It is committed to building a heavy maintenance centre in Australia. It has been around for only 11 years and is very much an underdog.

Without having access to the internal workings of this Qantas dispute, there had to be a more subtle way for Qantas management to end the intolerable process of attrition by the unions. The more prudent play would appear to have been to allow the operational losses to build until the unions appeared reckless and deviant and the government complicit. Instead, the Qantas board, under the chairman, Leigh Clifford, appears to have made serial blunders in the political theatre of this war, which is quite distinct from the legal and industrial relations theatres. I can count 10 tactical mistakes in the battle of perceptions:

Giving the chief executive a $2 million pay rise just before this battle.

Sacking 1000 workers in August while industrial agreements were being negotiated.

Announcing plans to set up a full-service carrier in Asia before due diligence was completed.

Even though the proposed Asian carrier may never prove viable, it created an impression that Qantas strategy was to move jobs and growth offshore.

Enabling the unions to portray themselves as fighting for Australian jobs.

Not warning passengers that flights would be suspended.

Leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

Creating a logistics nightmare for customers and suppliers.

Moving to maximise disruption, thus allowing the unions to deflect attention from their campaign to bleed the airline into submission.

Enabling Virgin to play the white knight on a large scale.

Two years ago, the Qantas board had to choose a replacement for the chief executive Geoff Dixon. The final choice was between the head of Jetstar, Alan Joyce, and the Qantas executive general manager, John Borghetti, a 35-year Qantas veteran. When the board chose Joyce, it signalled its strategic direction, which is now playing out.

Borghetti departed. Last year, he became head of Virgin Blue. He did not come cheap: an annual package, with incentives, that could top out at $3.5 million. It was more than Joyce was making as CEO of much bigger Qantas (hence his misbegotten pay rise). Borghetti has since transformed the international operations of Virgin, forging strategic links to Europe via Etihad, to the US via Delta Air Lines, and across the Tasman with Air New Zealand. Virgin has broken out of its regional niche.

Borghetti has also been working with the unions without encountering major industrial disruption. Admittedly, he inherited a much more flexible industrial regime and Virgin's underdog mentality. But the question now lingers: two years ago, did the Qantas board make the right call?

Spirit of Australia is faltering

The article above is written by Paul Sheehan and contains quite a few inacurracies... in regard to pilot wages... Few would get 540,000 a year (most are on 350,000 but the life of a pilot is more difficult and shorter than being a CEO... A chief electrician/engineer on an oil rig would be making that sort of money) while a Joyce would be getting seven to eight times this sum as a base salary PLUS a lot of "stock options, perks and bonuses". Further more, like Dixon — his predecessor who tried to do a nifty on the airline for quite a lot of promised dosh — he is likely to get a massive bonus if the airline is sold CHEAP to a private consortium and becomes unlisted on the stock exchange.

By grounding the airline, Joyce is devalueing the good will of all the people who work at Qantas, he is devalueing the value of the airlines for his "stupid-enough to support him" shareholders, he is devalueing the brand and shitting on this country until a banner saying NEW OWNER (new CEO would do the trick too) can restore a bit of lustre... My next cartoon was one of these automatic ticketing machines, the computed-voice asking the happless traveller: "Would you prefer a sticker that says — 'Fragile - Joyce is a little shit" — 'Destination unknown - Joyce is an idiot' — or 'You're stuffed anyhow - Joyce used to work for Ansett-Murdoch'? Because let's face it, if Joyce wins the battle outright — the Qantas brand airline would be lost. What do I care? See the movie "I Am All Right Jack"...

So I won't do the debasing cartoon... But it would reflect accurately what the travelling public says to me. To be the CEO of a firm such as Qantas, one needs a sense of history, to be a financial whiz and a leader of troops... To be a leader of troops, one has to inspire. On this score I think Joyce has failed miserably — only inspiring shareholders with more greed. On history I think he has failed too. On the financial side, I think I could do a better job — give me 36 hours to get up to speed on financial matters... I have seen too many companies go under because the only consideration was the bottom line — often creating resentment in the work force as well as killing the business by missing out on visionary inspirational development other than a cheap buck.

Yes I believe the Qantas board chose the wrong man for the job, but the directors there can't admit that, can they?...

Joyce left Ansett in 2000 to join Qantas.[6] At both Ansett Australia and Qantas, Joyce headed the Network Planning, Schedules Planning and Network Strategy functions.[4] Ansett was placed into administration in 2001 after suffering financial collapse.

Qantas management has been told to get its aircraft back in the sky and drop its plans to lock out its workforce tonight.

Early this morning the workplace umpire put a stop to all industrial action by the airline and unions, saying it was acting to prevent significant damage to the tourism and airline industries.

The decision by the full bench of Fair Work Australia (FWA) was handed down just after 2:00am AEDT after a marathon 15-hour hearing in Melbourne.

The airline says it should have its planes back in the sky by this afternoon if it gets the go-ahead from the safety regulator.

"The likelihood is we'll have our first positioning flight at 12:25pm today and our first commercial flights by 2:00pm this afternoon," Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said this morning.

"The schedule will ramp up and hopefully we'll be back to a full schedule tomorrow."

All Qantas planes were grounded on Saturday, leaving nearly 70,000 passengers stranded in 22 countries, and the airline had been threatening to lock out all employees from tonight.

The ruling means all parties have 21 days to negotiate a settlement to the dispute.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-31/qantas-action-terminated-fair-work-rules/3609158?WT.svl=news0

see also http://www.smh.com.au/business/ansett-employees-rally-10-years-on-20110908-1jykv.html

Ms Gillard was particularly critical of Qantas for taking the action it did in grounding the fleet, describing it as "extreme".

"They could have gone to the industrial umpire and sought assistance with arbitrating the dispute, working together with the industrial umpire to get it resolved," she said.

"Instead they took the action, with very little notice to anyone, of grounding the planes and stranding passengers around Australia and the world."

Mr Abbott says Ms Gillard could have prevented the grounding had she taken a call from Qantas CEO Mr Joyce.

"We've had 48 hours of chaos because the Prime Minister wasn't big enough to return Alan Joyce's calls," Mr Abbott said.

Ms Gillard conceded Mr Joyce did contact her office before he grounded the aircraft, but said he had not asked to speak to her.

"He did not make a request to speak to me about these matters. He understood that I was at CHOGM but in any event he had made it crystal clear to the Minister for Transport that he would be grounding the planes at 5pm - no ifs, no buts," she said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-31/gillard-on-qantas-grounding/3609954?WT.svl=news0

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No, Tonicchio, we had 48 hours of chaos because Joyce acted like a little shit (or a spoiled brat if one wants to be polite).

from Crikey .....

Union stirs up new turbulence for Qantas

Ben Sandilands, aviation reporter and Plane Talking blogger, writes:

QANTAS, QANTAS GROUNDED, QANTAS PILOTS

With the Qantas lockout of more than 80,000 customers without notice coming to an end this afternoon, the dispute that a 2am Fair Work Australia ruling appeared to solve is already hitting new turbulence.

The Transport Workers Union, representing the ground handling staff, said it was taking urgent legal advice as to whether it should appeal the FWA ruling.

National secretary Tony Sheldon simultaneously pledged to abide by the 21-day period (starting today) during which it can conciliate its differences with Qantas before a compulsory and binding arbitration could be made by the Fair Work umpire while having its legal team explore a ruling that he said needed to be challenged and, if possible, appealed.

His comments reflect some anger in the government, from the PM down, at the extreme action taken without due notice by Qantas to ground its domestic mainline and international fleets on Saturday until such time as the unions with which it was in dispute withdrew their legally protected industrial action.

The other unions, for the licensed engineers and the long-haul Qantas pilots, have also expressed concern that under this first major test of Julia Gillard's Fair Work Australia laws, a company, Qantas, had attacked its customers -- in its case 22,000 travellers overseas and about 80,000 within Australia -- by stranding them at airports in order to force the abandonment of legal industrial action by unions with which it is in dispute by itself causing the necessary amount of harm to the national interest to trigger legal intervention.

At a press conference this morning Qantas CEO Alan Joyce made a virtue of this, saying the airline took that action, rather than directly approaching FWA, because under the rules the industrial actions of the unions was insufficient to meet the test of harming the national economy.

Before Joyce spoke, Gillard said of Qantas:

"They could have gone to the industrial umpire and sought assistance with arbitrating the dispute, working together with the industrial umpire to get it resolved. Instead they took the action, with very little notice to anyone, of grounding the planes and stranding passengers around Australia and the world."

Just before she spoke, her industrial relations minister, Senator Chris Evans, described the Qantas actions as "extreme and provocative".

However, Joyce seemed unperturbed by the falling out with the federal government, and soon after he started speaking about the overwhelming messages of support he had received from business and large shareholders for his "courageous" actions the Qantas share price jumped more than 6.5% in early trading on the ASX. Qantas rival and dispute beneficiary Virgin Australia saw its shares jump 5.5% in the same period.

Government ministers, starting with Transport Minister Anthony Albanese on Saturday night, have cast doubts on Joyce's claims that the grounding decision was suddenly made on Saturday morning, but have confirmed that when it was conveyed to the government on Saturday afternoon -- three hours before the groundings began and threw air travel into chaos -- Joyce threatened that it would begin even sooner if word of it leaked out.

As the tales of misery continued from stranded travellers, including some who were abandoned by Qantas in flooded Bangkok when their London-Australia flight was grounded, the question as to just how much damage Qantas had inflicted on its own brand and that of Australia as a destination took on a life of its own on social media.

Joyce this morning brushed that off, saying the Qantas brand was resilient, pointing to how it had quickly recovered from a long ground engineers strike in 2008. He said the decision had been taken spontaneously by the board on Saturday morning, although there had been contingency scenario planning for months before.

While the dislocated travellers, many of whom have vowed never to fly Qantas again, resume their trips, Joyce said Qantas had been saved from a slow death by a thousand cuts.

He said the government has been warned on numerous occasions that Qantas forward bookings had collapsed because of the uncertainty generated by the industrial action, and that it was "very clear that our longer term survival was in question".

Perhaps it still is.

and this .....

The remorseless logic and profound disdain of Alan Joyce

Crikey Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

ALAN JOYCE, AVIATION, AVIATION INDUSTRRY, INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS, QANTAS, TRADE UNIONS

You're a historic Australian company, but you're doing it tough. You claim you're struggling to cope in a highly competitive international market, with subsidised foreign competition, high energy prices and a high Aussie dollar killing you. So you've focused on slashing labour costs and gunning for the unions that represent your workers.

But in reality, it's your management mistakes, and their failure to respond innovatively to challenges like your competitors have, that have been critical to the problems you now face. So you try to force government intervention to help you out of the corner you've painted yourself into.

Qantas? No, BlueScope Steel. The ex-BHP steelmaker and owner of the Port Kembla steelworks may not be as iconic as the Flying Kangaroo, but it has traced a similar path of management failure and antagonism towards its workers in an industry that has faced increasing international competition and been punished by high prices for raw materials and the strong Aussie.

As Ben Sandilands showed in one of several incisive posts over the weekend, the list of failures of Qantas management in recent years has been lengthy. Many of the competitive pressures it is facing have, in effect, been self-inflicted. And like BlueScope under Kirby Adams, it has substituted aggression towards unions for competence and innovation. Alan Joyce's ploy to force government intervention may not have been as blatant as BlueScope's constant whingeing about a carbon price and demands for compensation, but it's had the same successful result.

The key difference is, BlueScope can lay off thousands of workers, cripple a regional economy and send ripple effects of economic damage through Australian industry, but it can't inflict massive economic damage, threaten entire industries and inconvenience hundreds of thousands of people here and overseas. That's the power that Joyce wields and he has used it as a blunt instrument to short-circuit perfectly legal industrial action.

Consider what Fair Work Australia -- headed by a holdover from the Howard government, Geoffrey Giudice -- found last night. Not merely did it find that the unions' industrial action wouldn't have caused significant damage to the tourism and air transport industries while Qantas's grounding would do exactly that, it concluded "what we have heard indicates there are still prospects for a satisfactory negotiated outcome in all three cases. The prospect of a negotiated resolution in relation to the three proposed enterprise agreements still remains".

In short, Joyce's argument that the unions' campaign forced Qantas's hand has been found to be false by Fair Work Australia. There was the prospect of a negotiated outcome, and the unions' campaigns were not threatening significant damage either to wider industry or (and this appears to have been missed) to Qantas.

Instead, Joyce has used the threat of economic damage and the political pressure of Australia-wide transport chaos to force the government to intervene to end the dispute and force a resolution.

I called it industrial terrorism on the weekend, a description some readers had a problem with. It's no moral judgment, simply an accurate description of what Joyce is doing -- threatening havoc and spreading fear as a means of achieving political and economic ends. It's industrial terrorism by definition. And it's worked.

Some suggest Joyce has failed to anticipate how much the grounding will harm Qantas's brand. The stories from airports here and overseas, of angry, tearful or disconsolate Qantas passengers desperately searching for alternative flights, are undoubtedly very damaging, particularly for Qantas's international services. But from Joyce's point of view, there's no particular problem with brand damage, because his longer-term strategy is offshoring anyway. Why worry about damaging the airline's brand if your goal is to run that airline down anyway and replace it with offshore-based airlines?

Criticise Joyce if you like, but there's a rigorous corporate logic behind his threat to sabotage Australia's transport system.

Of course, if unions had held the economy to ransom in such a manner, the froth-mouthed fury from the Right would have been overwhelming. Instead, the Right is divided - not over the legitimacy of Joyce's actions, for which there is strong support (and as well from the business sector, which always cheers anyone taking on unions), but on the appropriate response of the government. First Peter Reith, and today Ian Hanke in the AFR, argued against government intervention. Hanke, a Liberal veteran and IR specialist, went further and gave his party a real serve, blaming its lack of IR direction since 2007.

For Labor, all it can do is get the planes back in the air. Qantas has it over a barrel, knowing no government can afford an extended disruption to aviation services, no matter how outrageous the behaviour of the airline. The government moved quickly to use its own Fair Work Act to shut the dispute down, which was exactly what Qantas wanted. That's the first step. The longer-term challenge for the government is to resolve the basic tension between what voters want -- which is the Qantas of old, a high-quality service staffed and run by Australians -- and what the market says they can get.

The brand damage that Qantas will suffer is partly a product of this tension, the result of an expectation that Qantas isn't just another private airline, but a "national carrier" operating in the national interest. Qantas still likes to exploit this residual sentiment in its advertising, but it's been a very long time since it did anything in the national interest, which is exactly how its shareholders like it. The resolution may be to explain to voters that in a small, internationally exposed market such as ours, the only path back to the old Qantas lies in economically damaging protectionism or costly government ownership -- particularly when management is as inept as Qantas's has been.

But there's more to the reaction against Qantas than just nostalgia for the good old days of a government-owned Flying Kangaroo. Joyce's behaviour -- Friday's absurd 71% pay rise, the blatant disregard for the welfare of Qantas passengers, his ongoing malice toward his workforce -- confirms a growing community sentiment about business leaders, which is finding its most pointed expression in the #occupy protests but that is manifested in deep-seated voter unease about high corporate remuneration.

The grounding was one of those moments when the mask of capitalism -- or at least the version of capitalism we've currently settled for -- slips to reveal a profound disdain on the part of large corporations towards the communities they profit from. At a time when there's growing anger about the divide in wealth and power between the so-called "1%" and the rest of us, it's a risky decision.

Transport Minister Anthony Albanese has angrily contradicted claims by Qantas boss Alan Joyce that he told the Federal Government "on multiple occasions" that he might ground the airline's fleet.

Fair Work Australia (FWA) ordered an end to industrial action in the early hours of this morning, telling Qantas to get its aircraft back into the sky and drop its plans to lock out its workforce.

The airline has been cleared by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to resume flights from 3.30pm (AEDT) - the first domestic flight to take off was QF438 from Melbourne to Sydney.

The resumption of flights will come as a relief to the 76,000 domestic passengers and 22,000 international travellers who had been stranded around the world since Saturday.

Fronting a news conference in Sydney this morning, Mr Joyce said grounding the fleet "was not a surprise to anybody".

"We have been talking about it for weeks, months about the pain this was causing Qantas," Mr Joyce said.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-10-31/qantas-boss-never-warned-of-grounding3a-albanese/3610804

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I know Albanese... And one thing's for sure. He might like to paint some glory gloss on what does... but under no occasion would he lie. He's a straight shooter, sometimes too honest for his own good, yet quite muscular about what he stands for. I would not be surprised if Alan Joyce lies outright about what he said to Albanese... Unless he would have said it in a "obtuse" way, that it only meant anything to himself... I know Albanese would have hit the roof should the concept of a "lock out" be put to him...

Alan Joyce should resign his post. End of story. He lied to a minister of the crown.

From Peter Lewis at Unleashed

Protest about corporate giants holding the nation to ransom and you'll get hauled away by police under cover of darkness.

Be a corporate giant and actually hold the nation to ransom and you'll get a $2 million pay rise and a pat on the back from your mates.

Only slightly less bizarre than Qantas CEO Allan Joyce's decision to ground his fleet over the weekend, stranding thousands of innocent punters, has been the muted response by the nation's media.

Imagine a union leader taking wildcat industrial action and grounding an airline, with no thought of the implications. The tabloids would scream "industrial thuggery" and "un-Australian bastardry"; there would be calls for deregistration of the union, possibly jail for the rogue official.

Contrast this with the media coverage of Joyce's weekend madness – The Australian and News Ltd tabloids did their best to cast him as a little Aussie battler, Sydney's Daily Telegraph bizarrely trying to blame Gillard for the capital strike. Fairfax showered the blame around; the ABC as always trying to stay in the middle was nowhere.

The sentiment that "this chaos had to be brought to a head", even though unions had already called off industrial action, has run consistently through media commentary.

And so, according to this script, the ends will justify the means when it comes to breaking unions and maximising profits; even if it means sending an Australian company offshore; sacking workers and shafting customers.

But the story being told in the traditional media bears little connection to the attitudes of the general public. 

As we wrote last week, there is little public support for Qantas's offshoring strategy; indeed the majority of people blame Qantas management for the industrial conflict.

------------------------

Alan Joyce should resign his post. End of story. He lied to a minister of the crown.

from Crikey .....

Post-grounding, now it's the Qantas-Virgin bidding war

Ben Sandilands, aviation reporter and Plane Talking blogger, writes:

ALAN JOYCE, JETSTAR, QANTAS, QANTAS GROUNDED, VIRGIN

As the enormity of the dislocation caused by the Qantas grounding continues to come home, by the plane load, Qantas and its natural enemy, Virgin Australia, are rolling out a massive and costly bidding war to retain or gain the customers that matter, the ones who fly frequently.

In the Qantas "war room" near Sydney Airport this morning, Alan Milne, the head of its integrated operations centre, was telling the cameras about "vouchers, cash, everything" when it came to compensating the dislocated.

Oddly enough, he didn't mention the "missing" A380 from London, which lobbed in Brisbane last night because it couldn't make Sydney before the 11pm jet curfew, or the rather trivial $50 pay-off to some passengers who departed Los Angeles on 14-hour flights that weren't loaded with enough meals.

However, when one such flight arrived at Sydney this morning. And Qantas did offer meals to the famished in the terminal.

Qantas is being generous to many, many travellers, compensating them for Jetstar, its 100%-owned low-fare subsidiary, gouging displaced Cityflyer customers with outrageously high fares.

In this one hand giveth while the other taketh exercise, those who had bought fares of about the $150 mark to fly to Melbourne on Qantas, and then were "lucky enough" to fork out about $300 for the horrid Jetstar experience, were not only getting their $150 back, but another $150 to ensure they didn't pay the full price for Jetstar's opportunistic shake down.

Over at Virgin Australia, where they are struggling to bank the money fast enough, free access to its lounges until Thursday at least was being offered to holders of Qantas Chairman's Lounge cards (read all politicians, industrial relations judges, aviation regulators and media superstars) or the vastly more numerous platinum level Qantas frequent flyers.

Virgin Australia's only problem with the Qantas situation appears to be growing its fleet, domestic and international, fast enough to cope with what those Qantas customers who have had it with the flying kangaroo, and recoiled from the weird Jetstar combination of over pricing for a resolutely sub standard level of amenity and service.

(Jetstar is a bargain if you get the cheap fares, but if you want flexible, last-minute scheduling, the result is something akin to uninvited physical violation while Qantas, when it operates, is often way ahead of Virgin Australia and Jetstar in useful low-fare availability with no extra charges for refreshments and a fair bit of checked luggage.)

The messaging that is already being cranked out about the Qantas grounding is mostly severely compromised. Financial analysts are largely praising Alan Joyce for his courageous hard-line stance against the unions.

But it was actually a hard-line stance against its customers. Qantas, as Joyce himself explained in detail, decided to attack approximately 140,000 travellers who have been affected in some direct way by the grounding, in order to make the dispute big enough to get lawful court-sanctioned industrial action by long-haul pilots, licensed engineers and ground staff shut down.

This was a management not a union atrocity. There is a distinct and well-articulated ideological loathing at the top in Qantas for organised labor, and putting the travel plans of 140,000 customers to the sword without warning is according to Joyce, an appropriate price for innocent bystanders to pay.

It points to a real weakness in Qantas under Joyce, in that there is none of the Virgin Australia or legendary Southwest Airlines type of staff engagement. The carrier's workplace relations are dysfunctional. And that will come at a price in terms of the customer experience as well as productivity.

Much of the commentary about brand damage to Qantas ignores the fact that management cares less for that than the opportunities it sees in the trans border Jetstar franchise and its nascent Asia-based premium small jet carrier.

The pilots, engineers and ground staff were the dissenting voices that raised the difficult question about the dishonesty of Qantas branding offshore-based jets in its livery with the words Spirit of Australia along the side, as well as issues with rotating Asia-based staff trained through domestic flights in order to lower costs.

The very Australian brand values of Qantas have not only been damaged by the grounding, they are, on the public record, of lesser importance to a management determined to exit what it sees as the costs of unaffordable excellence in legacy standards in the full service international Qantas operations.

There is a food chain in the value of Qantas as a business in that the loyalty program, which largely depends on earning points for overseas flights, is being broken by running down the reliability and relevance of this supposedly loss-making division.

Does Qantas really care about repairing that food chain? Perhaps not nearly a much as the chorus of Joyce defenders think.

During the Senate hearing Mr Joyce was accused of being ''obscure and devious'' and of ''trying to talk his way out of questions like Richard Nixon''.

He told the Labor senator Doug Cameron his grilling was ''a bit like a McCarthy trial''. He would not say if he would have complied with a government request to stop or delay the action.

The union movement says Qantas had planned the lockout with military precision and tabled a confidential email containing a claim from a Qantas contractor that it had been warned of the company's plans and raising questions about the pre-booking of hotel rooms for stranded passengers and printers and couriers to deliver notifications to staff.

Mr Joyce said the claims were ''conspiracy theories'', saying the decision to lock out staff and ground the airline had been his alone and made on Saturday morning. The subsequent meeting of the Qantas board was called only to seek ''endorsement''.

Qantas will give away 100,000 tickets worth $20 million as its way of saying "sorry" to passengers affected by the grounding of its entire fleet last weekend.

Tens of thousands of people were stranded in Australia and around the world when the airline grounded all flights for two days, as the result of an ongoing industrial dispute with its staff.

Flights have since returned to normal after Fair Work Australia terminated all industrial action between the airline and unions and ordered them back to the negotiating table.

All passengers whose flights were disrupted in the stoppage from 5pm on October 29 to 11.59pm on October 31, will be offered a free return economy flight to any destination within Australia, or a trans-Tasman flight to New Zealand and back.

Chief executive Alan Joyce says Qantas will also offer a bonus to all frequent flyers, although the airline has not yet finalised exact details.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-06/qantas-says-sorry-with-free-tickets/3637764?WT.svl=news1

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If it had negotiated that 20 millions bux to the workers, before the lock out, Qantas would not be in this mess. Alan Joyce should resign or be sacked... He's making the place bipolar... And I am not going to apologise to the people who suffer from this disease for using it in this context, as they would know what I'm taking about...

Unions say Qantas has not gone far enough in compensating passengers whose travel plans were thrown into disarray with the grounding of its entire fleet last weekend.

Tens of thousands of people were stranded in Australia and around the world when the airline grounded all flights for two days, as the result of an ongoing industrial dispute with its staff.

Qantas has announced it will offer 100,000 free flights worth $20 million, with people given either a free domestic flight or a free return trip to New Zealand.

The airline says the offer - advertised in today's newspapers - is its way of saying "sorry" to its passengers.

But Tony Sheldon from the Transport Workers Union says the airline needs to do more.

"Qantas has a 46 per cent increase in underlying profits this year," he said.

"They have the capacity to compensate international passengers. They have the capacity to turn around and reach decent Australian job arrangements instead of outsourcing jobs overseas.

"And they still have not compensated domestic passengers to the degree they should."

The union representing Qantas pilots has criticised the airline's decision to hand out free tickets.

Australian and International Pilots Association president Barry Jackson says it would have been cheaper to negotiate with employees in the first instance.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-06/union-slams-qantas-free-tickets/3638084?WT.svl=news1

My point exactly (see comment above this blog). See toon at top (Gus bold type above)

From Judith Sloane at Unleashed

...

To sum up, economics and labour law are strange bedfellows.  The right to strike is all well and good, but the fact is that there needs to be something to fight over without causing the enterprise to disinvest or close down.  With the dismantling of protection and microeconomic reform, more generally, many economic rents – for which consumers or taxpayers had to pay – have disappeared. 

So it is a new ballpark when it comes to enterprise bargaining and taking industrial action that is commercially damaging to enterprises.  But the identification of economic rents can be quite difficult and there is often a lag in the recognition that they no longer exist – witness the rolling stoppages at the Toyota automotive plant in a clearly beleaguered domestic industry.

http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/3638296.html?WT.svl=theDrum

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We all know that... Nothing new in this article...

The devil of industrial relations is in the details of what is expected of workers and of management — and in the way this agreable or tenuous relationship is structured, polished, mutually understood and negociated. For example whether it's CEO market price or whatever, the fact that Joyce got a 2 million dollars salary increase the day before he shut down Qantas is totally outrageous. It shows a callous greedy streak whether he is right against the unions or not. He should resign.

see toon at top...

A Twitter competition has drawn thousands of angry responses after Australian airline Qantas launched it amid a major labour dispute.

The airline asked people to describe a "dream luxury in-flight experience", offering Qantas gift packs as prizes.

But users of the micro-blogging service instead used the competition to vent their frustration with Qantas.

The contest ran a day after talks with unions broke down, and after Qantas grounded its entire fleet in October.

Thousands of passengers were stranded worldwide after the firm halted flights in an attempt to end months of strike action by workers angered by the firm's restructuring plans.

The "Qantas Luxury" promotion, launched on 22 November, quickly tapped into customers' ire.

"Qantas Luxury means sipping champagne on your corporate jet while grounding the entire airline, country, customers & staff," one Twitter user wrote.

"Qantas Luxury is getting my flight refund back after waiting almost a month," wrote another.

One Tweeter suggested the phrase meant "more than 3mins notice that the whole airline is on strike".

Social media commentator Peter Clarke wrote: "Epic PR fail, excellent case study in corporate cultural tone deafness. Simply don't get it".

But the airline put a brave face on what is being seen as a debacle, Tweeting: "At this rate our #QantasLuxury competition is going to take years to judge".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-15852965

Qantas is run by amateurs, promoted by silly kids still in nappies but, hopefully, the pilots are still trained to hold the stick...

From Amanda Vanstone...

...

Even the most ill-informed person knows that Qantas is competing internationally against airlines with lower cost structures. Qantas can't ignore that. Their ticket prices reflect it.

Joyce was faced with a well-publicised slow bake of his company by the unions. The government turned a blind eye while Qantas burnt. He made a decision to bring it to a head and resolve it. He gave the government a chance to use its powers to bring it to an end. The Prime Minister chose not to. In order to end it, Joyce simply had to bring it on. He knows that whatever Fair Work Australia decides, some unions will be looking to undermine him.

Whatever your politics, just stand back and take a look at this. Here is a guy under attack from some powerful and protected interests. He doesn't shirk his responsibility. He doesn't cower or run. He stands firm and takes it up to them. He's an Aussie if ever there was one. Make him Australian of the Year.

Alan Joyce has been granted nearly $600,000 worth of Qantas shares after he met performance targets.

http://video.news.com.au/2182129366/Alan-Joyce-to-receive-600-000-bonus

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Performance targets?... Kicking Qantas passengers in the guts?...

Qantas should fire a torpedo into its Asia expansion plans - at least for the time being.

It's just too risky.

While the business case of its now stalled Asian talks had some merit at a jet fuel price of $US85, which is what it was a couple of years ago, at a jet fuel price of more than $US130 it just doesn't stack up.

Qantas has confirmed it has "suspended any future dealings" with Australia's official tourism agency Tourism Australia.

Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce yesterday told Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson the airline was cutting ties with the agency.

Tourism Australia's chairman, Geoff Dixon, is a former chief of Qantas and part of a group of investors reportedly seeking control of the airline.

"This conflict has arisen from the involvement of Tourism Australia's chairman with a syndicate that is actively canvassing fundamental changes to the Qantas Group strategy, including the proposed partnership with Emirates," Qantas said in a statement this morning.

"Qantas cannot continue to collaborate with an agency whose chairman is a member of a syndicate committed to unravelling Qantas’ structure and direction."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-11-28/qantas-cuts-ties-with-tourism-australia/4396082?WT.svl=news2