Qantas Australia grounds its ENTIRE FLEET.... all QANTAS-based plans halted, passengers stranded

The thing is a LOT of mums and dads have investments in companies like QANTAS it just isn't DIRECTLY.
Its via their super funds.
That's how their power has been stripped away.
They have to take it up the arse when share prices drop and the value of their retirement fund goes down BUT they have no vote in how these companies go about their business because they don't own the shares directly.
So yeah,all the responsibility for the fall out but NO VOTE IN THE PROCESS AT ALL.

But what do you do? Those who see it have really small voices. Most of the people don't want to know, don't want to believe their government would fuck them over.

Can you back up those figures. I know people in this industry who aren't earning anything near this amount.

Here is a link letter that was tweeted allegedly written by a Qantas pilot.
[link to www.twitlonger.com]

There were around 3000 delegates from 54 countries in Perthand we can suppose that a number of these flew Qantas.

It is also the weekend before our largest horseracing event 'The Melbourne Cup'.

This action was taken by Qanta with less than 3 hours notice given to the Australian Government, enven though proof has now come out showing that Qantas had been planning this for at least 10 days and was well aware that the move to include International flights alongside domestic would have a great impact on the Australian economy.

Seems to me that good ole Alan Joyce has just made his debut as a standover man holding the Australian Government over a barrel and suggesting that they see things from the Corporations point of view. After all the Corporation only wants to help their workers and Australia to help themselves.... don't they?!?

By doing this, they have ensured that the dispute will be settled with government intervention sooner rather than later, but they have done so in a way that highlights the issues effecting each and every Australian at this point in time.

The Red Queen is no stranger to working alongside corporation giants as this was how she got to be Prime Minister (by having the mining magnates propel her to a successful takover bid in order to control Rudd and ensure they had a greater say on what the Governmnet did). Well one now has to wonder whether she will do what is right or once again allow the corporations to run our government (in not so subtle ways) from the sidelines.

I cannot see any clear way forward.

We have reached a stalemate position here in Australia.

Corporations have come as far as possible successfully while still retaining workers rights and decent wages.

Now they tell us that to continue to be competitive in the world they must be able to fire workers without cause and they must be able to pay wages that do not keep in step with the cost of living.

I for one have a hard time believing these corporations when Alan Joyce held off this despicable move until after a shareholders meeting where he was able to procure for himself a 66% payrise while fighting a 2.5% increase for his workers.

No doubt though the corporates have the muscle needed to continue to maneuvre politcs the way they want but do we Australians have the stomach to stop them?!?

That is the real question.

And when ALL of the jobs are outsourced overseas then they'll cry in their beers about it.
The thing with us Aussies is a LOT of the employed have no idea of when is good time to push and when is a good time to back off.
With the economic situation globally, you'd think these employees would just be lucky to have a job at all.
THAT'S HOW BAD THE CURRENT GLOBAL FINANCIAL SITUATION IS.

Now is not a good time to push for extra dosh.
And lets face it, these people aren't on slave wages/minimum wage.

"The airline says it is losing an “unsustainable” $15 million a week due to ongoing and “cynical” industrial action by the ALAEA and TWU. But the grounding is going to cost at least $20 million a day, and probably much more in accommodation for stranded passengers, in reduced forward bookings, and in longer term overall customer confidence in the airline.

snip

"It’s difficult to believe that Saturday’s decision was just taken without some planning beforehand. Anecdotal reports of hotel rooms being booked by the airline last week notwithstanding, the ramifications of such a move must have required some significant forethought. Therefore, much of what was said at Qantas’s AGM on Friday and what has been said by Qantas to government officials in recent days or weeks could be interpreted as being a lie if the option of a lockout and grounding was not mooted. Perhaps Joyce and the board would not have received the support of a reported 96 per cent of shareholders at the AGM had those shareholders known the airline would be grounded the next day!"

[link to australianaviation.com.au]

That sucks. But at least you got a flight I guess.

Hope you get some rest. =)

I thought it was funny that The Queen left Australia.... on a Qantas plane!!

But do they mention they off loaded all their 3rd party maintenance contracts 18 to 24 months ago. At the time we thought, why the fuck are they doing this? This can't be good for business.

They aren't losing money, this was a move to make it look as if they were and to turn public sympathy their way.

oh-oh, I thought something seemed fishy about the vote in favor of the massive raise for Joyce and other board members.

"He [head of the Licenced Aircraft Engineers' Association] said he was shocked to discover on arrival at the meeting at the university of NSW in Kensington that shareholders would be denied their right to show "their disgust at the 71 per cent pay rise Alan Joyce is going to award himself" with a show of hands.

Instead, Mr Purvinas said, shareholders would vote on the CEOs pay using individual hand held voting machines"

[link to www.dailytelegraph.com.au]

There's bigger bucks in spraying the skies.
One of Qantas's jets has already been busted do so-the thread was on this site,with photos.....
The CEO is a just a talking head - the harder he tows the line,the greater the reward.
The founders of this once great airline would be rolling in their graves!

I understand this. I don't know what to do either.

But the reality is if people DON'T stand up and fight as a collective then they have sealed their own fate.

This is really what the OWS movement was trying to highlight/ make people aware of and get them to STOP fence sitting.

Sorry. I have nothing further to add. =(

The plot thickens. Thanks for posting the info.

Another factor is that Joyce has been wallowing in the media spotlight since he announced the shutdown; attending wall to wall media interviews in which he's remained unrepentant and unapologetic for his actions. This behaviour may be characteristic of a psychopath. Qantas is a central part of Aussie infrastructure as no one can drive from city to city, so he's taken down a central part of how this country functions as a nation. No one should be allowed to do this on a whim, especially after signing off on their $5 million salary.

That may be true, but it is much more than that and people can have their own smsf and control their investments themselves.

The Qantas move is to deunionise everything so people are stripped completely of any rights they have left. When will these sheeple Aussies wake up?

yep

Agreed. If Australians as a collective don't stand up to this then they have just sealed their own fate.

Hope I have offended anyone by saying this but I am pissed off to say the least.

So tired of people turning a blind eye and ignoring the ramifications of non action.

Perhaps by "Commie Unions" he meant to say "Alan Joyce"?

I heard Joyce in an interview . the guys like a hard core Irishman or working class Welsh something really hardcore lower middle class with a $5 million pay packet. how the heck did he get that position .

I hear they are actually trying to run qantas down so the share prices drop and someone can buy it for pennies on the dollar

You can't compare us to parts of Asia. Their rent does not cost them $300-$500 a week. Ours does even for dumps.

The Chinese buying up our houses is driving our house prices up so it's not all about people living beyound their means. There are plenty of people who live quite simply but live from pay to pay.

havent read the whole thread-sorry-just landed myself.

this is blatant anti labor.
How much do the employees want?
How many days of this lock out will eat that amount up?
Notice too that when labor strikes in the USA they can call up Taft_hartley and force the employees to work...but on a lock out the big guys do what they want.

Hopefully the Qantas employees have enough cash saved to keep fighting this and eat.
Good Luck to them.

Occupy Qantas

You just proved my point, you say their rent etc and we cant compare? why not?..i mean if they are buying up our houses etc surely they have money to do so no?..one day the penny is going to drop for alot of you..sadly it will be too late.

It's rich Chinese doing that, not the average guy in the street who lives in similar to our high rise government housing. So it's the guy who owns the factory that is buying here, not the person who sits at the sewing machine making the clothes that we all wear.

fuck man, sorry to sound rude..but really..i made my living from travelling to these places and buying shit and selling it here...these "workers" are looked after in there own right and their families..our perception of a decent wage is a far cry from them, yet they are happy ppl with opinions about our culture here.

They are happy ppl for the most part....yet us with high wages etc wine constantly about pay increases ect..tell me how many of you guys actually follow what our "Diggers" and what they are getting for their worth??..hint it is not indexed..we have far more older ppl living below what we concider poverty line..yet we ignore what made this place what we call australia..
If i learnt anything from my travels to the far east it is this...LOOK AFTER YOUR ELDERS FIRST.

Also you can't use the average wage in Aus as a marker as it's simply not true. Most people earn far less than what they claim is average.

The mining wages are inflating the averages. If you took them out you would come up with a far lower figure. I could easily earn double I do now if I worked at a mine doing similar admin based work & I'd have all my food & acccommodation provided while there & flights provided on top of that.

Fail bro/sis that is world wide not just here...you see it yet??

I've travelled extensively myself so I do know how it is elsewhere in the world. The Chinese did seem happy enough when I visited but their cost of living was far less than ours is. I also know that the cost of living in some Australian cities now is higher than pretty much anywhere else in the world now (according to several indexes which have been released this year). We the people who live here have no way of controlling that.

I totally agree we should look after our elderly & those who are unable to work but it's never going to happen as our Government is so out of touch. I have retired parents & my dad is a veteran so I know what it's like for retirees. I am a single mother & for 6 months recently the govt provided me with $450 a week to live on. Had I not just been given a golden parachute I would have been totally screwed as it's impossible to live on that these days & pensioners are worse off than that.