An open thread where, at your weekend leisure, you can discuss anything you like.
(Prefer to join a more focussed discussion? Try our recent roundtables for recent lively discussions or browse our archives for topics of interest)
Life, Culture and Politics from BrisVegas
Larvatus Prodeo was an Australian group blog which discussed politics, sociology, culture, life, religion and science from a left of centre perspective. more»
Frist?
Do any LPers know what this is about
Baa Baa black sheep have you any wool
yes sir yes sir, three bags full
one for the brokers and one for the banks
and one for the Japanese to sell to the yanks.
it has been running around my head for the last week or so, i think that it is from the ’68 election, but not sure.
I think I’m right in saying that Arthur Sinodonis has yet to take up the NSW Lib. Senate vacancy (31st Oct., Senate website). It’s just that recently I’ve been trying to imagine the party room welcome he’ll receive once he gets to Canberra. I’m guessing it will begin with a rousing welcome speech of manly comradarie and brutishness that only the Opposition Leader of the House Christopher Pyne could deliver. Then as the speech reaches its ball-breaking crescendo I’m assuming from a side room “Spartacus Tony” will enter wearing nothing but a pair of metal-studded leather shorts and a generous smearing of duck fat. He’ll then swagger, simian-like, toward the rostrum evoking memories to all those present of Kirk Douglas, Russell Crowe (the Village People!). “Spartacus Tony” will then thrust out his glistening forearm and greet the new senator with that classic line from “Flying High” – “Arthur do you like gladiator movies?”. Pandemonium will erupt. O’ to be a fly on the wall and to witness such history!
Of course as a citizen of this country my only hope is that some good will come from the elevation of Arthur. We are constantly being told what a megabrain Arthur is and that not only will he be elevated immediately to the front bench he’ll become part of Tony’s “inner-circle” providing advice and guidance. A recent profile piece in the Weekend Age revealed that of all his parliamentary colleagues the one TA’s most likely to call upon for advice, or just simply to “chew the fat”, is the aforementioned CPyne. Outside of parliament his closest confidantes and mentors appear to be ‘gentlemen’ such as Alan Jones, David Flint, Christopher Pearson and a bloke in a dress called George. Let’s hope the athletic Arthur’s ‘input’ to this circle is positive for the nation and he’s not too distracted by thoughts of gladiator movies!!
#
XXXXXXX, you’re are missing the point. These are NOT Police actions. This is classical COUNTER INSURGENCY OPERATIONS. There is a reason why OUR Police now wear blue combat uniforms and act the way they do! The leadership of our world recognise what we are doing and are determined to stop it at any cost.
I agree with you in get me somewhere I can protest but expect arrest, a broken head and, eventually, Kent State University again.
They know what they are doing but we don’t just yet.
*
*
Get me to somewhere I can occupy! Wretched thing to do to protesters, so this is what happens when the world decides to take on the corporates… bring it on
Wow, Qantas decided to play chicken. They ave cancelled all their flights, domestic and international indefinitely. Until they can come to an agreement with the unions.
http://www.smh.com.au/travel/qantas-grounds-all-flights-20111029-1mpao.html
Which way do people reckon Julia will go on the QANTAS dispute? Hawke took on the pilots back in the 80s. The dispute went on for a very long time.
Anyone know what power the government actually has in cases like this?
Just a gentle reminder, “Julia/Bob” or “Gillard/Hawke”. There’s no reason to refer to each by a different naming convention within the same short sentence.
Joyce increasingly looks like Qantas’s version of Sol Trujillo. Presumably he also will be off back home after he has completely destroyed the company.
Does Alan Joyce have the executive power to close the airline without having flagged any change of trading conditions to the ASX? Perhaps he is also intending to advise shareholders of his decision by means other than a fiat publically announced. It is lucky for Alan that his payrise was passed by the AGM a few days ago so he’s at least a few million in front of anybody else involved.
It also seems to me that this latest ploy has distant references to the failed sale of Qantas by Geoff Dixon and the Board a few years ago.
So Qantas flights are grounded indefinitely on the tarmac…
…and this differs from business-as-usual, how, exactly?
mediatracker @ 9 – his “payrise” is dependent on Qantas making a whole bunch of performance targets. Unlikely to happen while they’re losing $50million/day
Reported on ABC24 – the government have just made a submission to Fair Work Australia to force both sides to halt all industrial action. Perhaps this is what Qantas was really after.
Looks like Joyce wants someone else to do his negotiating for him.
“We are locking out until the unions withdraw their extreme claim and reach an agreement with us,” Mr Joyce said…..
“What an a complete and utter evil wanker this extremely rich bastard is” Mr Sykes says…
That noise you can hear emanating from a certain cemetery in Sydney is that of the late Sir Wilmot Hudson Fysh spinning in his grave.
Joyce might have looked a lot better if there had been no pay rise until after the industrial stoush had been sorted out. All he has done has allowed himself to be made a target for hypocrisy now.
Of course Qantas would not be the first company to bring in someone to the dirty work with the idea of dropping him like a hot potato as soon as things get too hard.
Yeah, why would you want pilots and aircraft engineers to have a decent salary. They’re only the people keeping you thousands of feet above the earth where a mistake could mean death and mayhem for hundreds.
I must admit I’m a little surprised and puzzled about how hard the unions have gone in against Qantas.
The company’s international division is competing against the likes of Emirates who pay their workers less (helps that they’re not paying income tax on their salaries), and they’re getting creamed.
That’s the commercial reality. This isn’t a company making massive profits.
Joyce would not have made this decision alone. Have a look at the Board and their connections. http://www.qantas.com.au/travel/airlines/board-of-directors/global/en
They must know they can push this and get support from the Gillard Government.
One could be forgiven for thinking the Qantas engineers don’t want a job.
They seem bent upon industrial suicide.
How much are Qantas pilots and aircraft eningineers paid Helen? Do you know?
Alan Joyce is making Chris Corrigan look like a good bloke.
Is Joyce working for the liebrals?
Thanks Nanalevu. As always, thoughtful and to the point.
At the risk of spawning massive arguments and the like … Fukushima Broadcasting this morning announced the release of some results of internal examination of children in Minami Soma City (which is on the edge of the exclusion zone around Fukushima Daiichi Power Plant). They’re currently only in Japanese, though I have it on authority from someone connected to the investigation that they will be translated to English and presented alongside a comparison with Chernobyl.
The linked news report basically states that up until now 2,884 children have been investigated and cesium found in 274. The first 2357 were investigated up until 22nd September, and the remaining 527 after 22nd September with a more sensitive type of equipment. Of the 274 children with cesium present, 9 had levels above 20 becquerels per kilogram. The average level found amongst all children was 7 bec/kg, which the City Mayor/head of the hospital (I’m not sure which) stated at a press conference was ごく微量（goku biryoh), “quite miniscule.”
So out of 2884 children, 9 are at heightened risk of cancer due to cesium, is I think the upshot of this (though I don’t know for sure if the 20 bec/kg limit used in the article is important for determining this). The reasons I’ve heard for this are that, unlike Chernobyl, families in the affected areas were not forced by circumstance to eat locally-sourced food. They just wandered down to the supermarket and bought imports from oveseas/western Honshu, and so avoided exposing their children to risk. It’s essentially a natural consequence of a free market in food (which didn’t exist at Chernobyl) and of the govt stepping in quickly to ban the sale of locally-sourced milk and introducing testing of other products.
A flaw to be aware of (clear in the linked report if you read Japanese) is that only 6 children amongst the first 2357 were found to have cesium present; the other 268 came from the remaining 527. So the true level of exposure to cesium in children in Minami Soma City is probably 268/527, not 274/2884. But the earlier equipment was sensitive to higher levels of cesium, so the finding that only 9/2884 had dangerous levels of cesium is likely to be accurate.
I have a vague connection to someone who knows someone who is connected to a dog that is related to a pony that once met a guy who is involved in this monitoring, and have asked the pony to get the dog to tell the guy’s sister that if he’s not too busy I’d like to be apprized of the release of any results in English. I’m doubtful that this will happen (or that the pony speaks Japanese) but if it does I’ll put up a link.
Nanalevu @ 18 Yes obviously ALP members every last one of them.
Robert @ 17 – perhaps the long term goal of the unions is re-nationalisation of the international arm of Qantas? That way they have the backing required to subsidise the airline to keep it viable with the current pay and conditions. And as an ex-Qantas exec has been writing about recently its the government that gets a big share of the benefit through tourism, not Qantas.
Maybe, Chris.
I’m just aware of the history of the airline business, where incumbent, highly unionized airlines in the USA went down the toilet because they faced competitors with lower costs.
As such, while I have little time for overpaid corporate management, it doesn’t alter the commercial reality that the company appears to be facing.
I can’t imagine that renationalizing Qantas is going to well, fly, either. Aside from anything else, the costs of subsidizing an airline would make that bloody surplus target just that little bit harder.
Furthermore, I don’t see why it would be a good use of government funds to do so.
That said, the grounding appears to be a massive stunt by the airline forcing the government to be dragged in.
given the cut-throatiness of the modern airline industry (compared with 198-whatever when Hawke did the dirty on the pilots), and the relative internationalization compared to back then, I wonder if this won’t backfire on QANTAS management? A whole bunch of pissed-off current customers, followed by everyone else just flying on Singapore or whatever – and finding out they’re better.
I imagine most Australians aren’t strongly sympathetic to either side in this battle. Grounding flights when there are no alternatives might sway things your way; but people can just shop around now, and will probably find lower prices and better service anyway…
sg @ 27 – most passengers aren’t very loyal to an airline anyway. They just pick the cheapest fare – certainly domestically and I’d guess increasingly for international flights which is hurting Qantas anyway.
Perhaps the “closure of 50% of Qantas” that Joyce has been threatening the Unions (and us) with is not about this particular dispute at all. Perhaps the company is just about belly up anyway and the dispute gives them (the rich bastards) the opportunity to walk away from their consistent failure of management. The Joyce pay rise then a “golden handshake” not a bonus based on past or future performance at all.
Time to renationalise QANTAS and sack that overpaid fool Joyce.
Most of the traveling public commentary you read in news websites us running very strongly against management. Especially the day after Joyce gets a 71% pay rise.
LeftyE – you do realise that the 71% figure is mostly union spin don’t you? Much of it is deferred incentive scheme money from previous years. Eg the board decided to defer bonus money for the last couple of years because the performance wasn’t good enough. He only gets the money if Qantas meets certain performance targets (not looking good!).
If you believe what Qantas says (always to be taken with a large grain of salt), the actual guaranteed salary (including shares) is down 10%.
I dunno, Lefty E. I could think of approximately ten million things that would be a better use of public money than having a government run an inefficient airline.
sg, with regards to radiation exposure amongst children, the effects at Chernobyl are generally regarded as due to I-131 exposure, not cesium.
20 becquerels/kg is a very small amount of radioactivity, BTW. See Banana equivalent dose for a good comparison.
In the SMH, Peter Hatcher suggests dubiously I consider that there is wide dissatification with the Federal minority Government, as distinct from, for example, the political leadership.
Assuming this proposition was accurate, the question would come down to opinion within specific electorates, particularly electorates traditionally held by the National Party. In such electorates there may be questions among some voters concerned with issues such as fracking that the National Party does not effectively represent country interests.
Even though the geographic electoral bias favors National representation, I doubt whether such discontent will effect an electoral outcome in which apparently the Labor Government can only attract 29% support. So what is Peter Hatcher on about?
#23 sg,
The report of testing of children in Fukushima for CS-137 states that 20 children had 9 Bq/kg of body weight not 9 children with 20 Bq/kg.
So how does this stack up as a risk?
According to the US Health Physics society the human body contains about 104 Bq/Kg of K40 and C14. So the 20 children have perhaps 10% more internal emitters than they would otherwise have had.
http://www.hps.org/publicinformation/ate/q322.html
Internal sources of radiation constitute about 11% of all natural radiation exposure, so those children have had their radiation exposure increased by about 1% due Cs-137 uptake.
http://mightylib.mit.edu/Course%20Materials/22.01/Fall%202001/sources%20of%20exposure.pdf
If their normal annual natural exposure is about 3 mSv, the incremental exposure due to Cs-137 is about 0.03 mSv. Using LNT assumptions (a dubious proposition for such tiny dose) and scaling from a 5% increased risk of fatal cancer per 1000 mSv dose, this implies an excess cancer risk of about (0.05 * 0.03) / 1000 = 0.00015% per year of exposure. This of course will decline as the biological half life of Cs in the human body is a matter of months.
Back of envelope stuff but right order of magnitude. Even if the risk is increased due to the young age, the risk looks trivial. Frightening children and their parents with the big ‘C’ words looks plain irresponsible.
Better than it not running at all, I would have thought Rob. Incidentally, I’m old enough to have flown it ad a govt airline – and it was a far superior service!
Chris – it also includes shares. It was voted on yesterday – it’s increased, as of then, by 71%. union spin my butt!
I think it’s time for customers to step in and pressure the shareholders and directors to sack Joyce immediately. He’s a lunatic.
….and make the point that we won’t be flying jetstar either if this is simply a con to shut the national airline down
Regarding the QANTAS issue – the long term agenda has been to transfer the passengers to Jetstar, close down the domestic arm and move the rest to an Asian country that does not have Australias labour laws – all to increase profits. Reduced wages and conditions arent the only way to make the airline more competitive and profitable, or the best, but they are the easiest. Management has been starving QANTAS domestic to build up Jetstar ever since they started it.
Joyce, if sacked, would be snapped up immediately by a competitor airline. He has done well at Qantas – up till now – and many boards would sympathise with the peculiar difficulties he has faced in Australia. He will not be tarnished but the reputation of Qantas will be, and so, too, will Australia’s reputation as a place for doing business.
And I might add, nationalisation isnt a fanciful option here: thats precisely what the NZ govt did when corporate parasites like Joyce tried to trash AIr NZ a few years ago.
Relationships between management and unions (and staff for that matter) at Qantas has been characterised by a lack of trust, indeed bloody-minded intransigence, from the time of Geoff Dixon and before.
The airline says it loses $200 million pa on its international operations. The unions say they don’t believe it.
My impression is that, as Robert says, competitive forces mean that the airline has to change or die. I suspect these pressures have been exacerbated by pro-competition government policies.
I think Dixon and Joyce have plotted a path whereby Qantas can not only survive but grow. Ultimately, though, staff relations are a responsibility of management and they haven’t really tried to bring the staff along with them. The unions may be fractious, but both CEOs have chosen deceit about their intentions and confrontation as their preferred strategy.
It now looks like a crash through or crash strategy. Yep, it’s madness and Joyce should go.
Yes I did say it included shares. But the 71% includes deferred bonuses from previous years because the board was not happy with his performance which distorts the numbers (eg if your employer gives you money that you were meant to get last year is that a payrise?). And If Qantas doesn’t meet the performance targets (can you see that happening in the current climate?) he doesn’t get the money.
I dont know about the “change or die”stuff Brian. QANTAS yet again announced a major profit (wasnt it 44% up on last year?) – so its not exactly evident from the bottom line.
hi wmmbb @ 35, yeah i read hartchers piece too and think he might’ve put a title to a different piece to it… or something.
he made the obious case that australian’s (especially young ones) are fed up with the 2 major parties, but I didn’t see any evidence for disappointment in the minority gov.
his statement that 16-17yr olds just want things to go back to ‘normal’ sounds dodgy. i’m assuming by ‘normal’ he means the howard years. these kids were < 12-13 during those years. i'm thinking they had some help from their coalition voting parents to write their speeches.
if anything his article shows the opposite to the title: near his conclusion he mentioned that happiness with democracy here has gone from 59% in 1975 to 73% now. his attempt to slur gough has backfired and given the current gov a great big new compliment.
LeftyE @ 45 – profit before taxes was actually up 50%. But as Joyce pointed out that only represents a 4% return (planes cost a *lot*). eg you get a better return from putting your money in the bank.
Interestingly apparently the really profitable bit of the company is the frequent flyer program! I think that is them selling ff points to credit card companies etc.
Brian @ 43 – given the state of affairs at Qantas I wonder if Joyce knew his time as CEO is pretty limited anyway. So he didn’t really have anything to lose by trying such an extreme strategy.
LE @ 45, I haven’t been following Qantas closely because I decided a few years ago you’d need to be insane to buy their shares.
Just checked some figures. Net profit in 2011 was $250 million. Sounds a big figure, and up from $112 million in 2010.
But it is 26% of what it was in 2008 and only 58% of what it was in 2002. They haven’t paid a dividend for two years and the operating margin is quoted as 1.8%.
It’s running on empty on revenues of about $15 billion. But 3 out of 4 brokers following the stock have it on a “strong buy” so they must have been impressed with Joyce’s plans.
Chris, that 4% would be return on capital, I think. Return on equity is about the same, which is pretty low. There’s not much reason to get out of bed for that return. Better off putting the money in the bank, or better still buying the bank.
Note to Unions: If you want more pay – you need to be worth more. How are you worth more? By being more profitable. How do you
become more profitable? – either increase revenue for the same costs or decrease costs for the same revenue.
What was QANTAS manaement supposed to do – either completely cave in to unsustainable demands from the unions or suffer continuing damage to revenues and the Brand?
Well done QANTAS Board – time for the Unions and the Federal Government to put up or shut up.
QANTAS is the next Ansett if the Unions don’t wise up.
Lefty E, Ansett going under didn’t stop people from flying Qantas and Virgin.
The same can happen here – except that Qantas has its own “competitor” airline ready to go.
Heck, they’ll probably rename Jetstar “Qantas Australia” and be done with it.
It seems that Qantas were pre-booking hotel accommodation in overseas destinations last week in preparation for this strategy. Should this have been made known to shareholders at the AGM ?
Probably not.
No doubt at some stage in his presentation the CEO would have referred to “necessary steps” or somesuch thing about Qantas’s planning in the dispute.
All they will care about is their investment – i.e. their return on investment and the return of their principal if they sell out.
The quicker folks get over the myth that the existence of QANTAS has anything to do with national pride, prestige or security, the better.
Travel is now cheap and safe. QANTAS owes it to its stockholders to compete in this global market.
Joyce’s extreme and provocative actions will kill off the residual sentimental attachments of Australians with QANTAS. If QANTAS survives this traumatic rebirth they will survive on the basis of price and service.
Renationalise QANTAS? You must be kidding. Invest in QANTAS? Good luck with that.
Wantok @ 52, just saw it on the news. Apparently there are documents showing that Quantas was planning this 10 days ago!
The Union spun it as a deliberate strategy to damage the Australian economy, Quantas customers and Quantas workers.
It may not have been deliberate to damage the economy and customers but they must have known this would be the effect. Bizzare.
Joyce is an Australian citizen, and has previously worked for Ansett, and Jetstar where he was made CEO, beofre he moved to QANTAS.
@40 is totally correct, the plan has always been to ‘move’ domestic customers to Jetstar and totally relocate QANTAS OS. This is a plan, quietly crafted and well executed.
There is no way the feds would ‘nationalise’, I mean really?, this ALP incarnation?? There is no way QANTAS will continue anything like ‘business as normal’ and FairWork would be silly to ignore that point. It will no doubt come to some middle ground which will pave the way for the Joyce model to be implemented.
So Alan Joyce has trashed the brand so it can be moved overseas? That’s even more bizarre. Under a new name perhaps? Something that satisfies Joyce’s megalomania?
I like my niece’s take on it, on Facebook:
#57 So Mr Joyce is being disingenuous when he says this dispute will split the company in half, for this is his very intention.
The reality is that continuing economic growth year after year after year is neither a rational expectation nor at the end of the day/millenia possible.
It’s a shame, my mother was a Qantas hostie and I used to naively feel some sort brand loyalty. The level of ‘service’ they offered in the fifties was unbelievable compared to the cattle-trucking of today.
There are some quite obviously ‘evil’ stand-out corporations in Australia and I’m afraid Qantarse is one of them.
Grounding the planes is a variant on the old fashioned lockout. And I thought that class war had had its day.
Re the rebranding of an off-shored QANTAS: Dedalus Airlines would be suitably Joycean.
Daedelus, unlike his rash son Icarus, off-shored himself successfully by means of his waxen wings.
I wonder if Qantas gets its way, whether the Government ought to look at the rules that prevent international airlines from picking up passengers on domestic legs unless they are flying with that airline internationally? There are a lot of vacant seats between capitals that could be filled cheaply this way. And save some fossil fuel.
Maybe now is the time for the Government to revisit that little hidden subsidy for the Qantas (and Virgin and Jetstar) models?
What do you think strikes are Anthony?
And do you think they have had their day?
Salient Green @ 55 – I heard the website for the dispute was registered a couple of months ago. I too doubt the timing for this was random – too many coincidences – Melbourne cup, CHOGM and on a saturday when it would be easier to halt all flights with a minimum number of passengers in the air.
But we shouldn’t really be surprised by this – its not like the unions just happened to strike during the school holidays. They design their strikes to maximise pain for the company and I suspect Qantas has designed theirs to maximise the pain for the government to get them to intervene.
Lockouts should have to be ballotted by shareholders, as with strikes.
Im no corpoations act expert, I wonder whether ASIC would be interested in Joyce’s deliberate concealment of this strategy from shareholders two days ago. Certainly , there’s no good faith bargaining going on at the QANTAS end.
Just a reminder than NZ renationaised Air NZ in 2001, and rail and ferries in 2008, ending “ a decade … of financial scandal, of asset-stripping, and of neglect” and sparing “future generations from subsidising a private rail operator”
http://www.railnews.co.uk/news/international/2008/07/01-new-zealand-renationalises.html
Jimmy Savile the world’s first D.J. passed away at age 84.
RIP Mr. Savile.
Anyone who’s been paying attention would know that t verity violet @57 is correct. This has been the plan ever since the idea of Jetstar was conceived.
BTW, there appears to be a massive gap in formation available on what the unions are actually asking for and what Qantas is prepared (if anything) to offer.
Anyone know where this info can be found?
Also some interesting info on Joyce’s work history on Ben Sandilands’ blog at Crikey, and this from Sandilands in response to a question on what other options Qantas management has:
Alan Joyce’s pay rise was approved by institutional investors who like to reward each other whenever possible.
From new research published this week:
More on this with the link at 2risk.wordpress.com
Marks @63: they already do pick up domestic passengers on international flights; for instance, I have flown Darwin/Cairns on a Qantas flight from Singapore several times……………is that what you meant ?
Unions have to give advance notice of any industrial action, but it seems employers can legally start a wildcat lockout whenever they like. Yet another example of the double standards that apply in the neoliberal IR world.
This kind of union-busting operation needs massive planning. For a start, I’m sure Qantas would have consulted any banks it has a relationship with.
Lefty E: good point on continuous disclosure. This has certainly had a material effect on Qantas’s share price. But lets do something about it. Progressives should bombard ASIC with demands that they actually apply the law in this case.
P.S. Very interesting that 2 Liberal premiers just happened to write public letters urging intervening just before this lockout……but, of course, this was only decided on yesterday.
By the way, does anyone know anything about one of Joyce’s senior executives who worked for Rio Tinto? Name escapes me. He would no doubt have a great deal of union-busting expertise.
…urging intervention…
Ginga, Leigh Clifford used to be CEO of Rio Tinto – where he developed a reputation for taking a hard line against unions.
One of the key reasons for the reduction of strikes in Aus is that unions and strikers have become exposed to the threat of damage claims in the real courts. This change was a real break from the good old days when many strikes were, strictly speaking, illegal but there were no consequences apart from loss of pay for the days on strikes.
Which begs the question: “To what extent are companies exposed to damage claims as a consequence of lockouts?”
If claims that a lockout was being planned are true someone who would have made alternative arrangements (or simply cancelled the trip) has good grounds for being very pissed off and being part of a class action against QANTAS and its board.
Alan Joyce has probably doubled his value as a corporate hire.
He’s got courage, foresight, acumen, now we’ll see if he has stamina.
Anybody who doesn’t support him, hasn’t thought the matter through.
3 more Australian soldiers killed in Afganistan
It is a shame the government feels driven to babble on about staying the course at the same time as announcing the deaths.
Due to the interest in the Qantas industrial action/lockout, I’ve just put up a quicklink/open thread post here.
You can get some idea of the putative health effects of Cs-137 (as the major source of constant low dose internal exposure after nuclear accidents) by looking at the large European low dose research initiatives : apart from the increasing the risk of cancers, they are studying effects on the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular system (there are already some published studies of mouse models ) and ARCH, was also going to look at heritable DNA changes amongst Chernobyl survivors. This article refers to those large European initiatives in the context of the forlorn news that, having established ARCH under the auspices of the WHO and with suitable input from epidemiologists like Cardis and Baverstock and from the IAEA, their plan to establish a lifetime cohort study of Chernobyl victims, as happened after Hiroshima, could well founder because of the refusal to fund it. The amount of money involved is tiny: a million pounds for its establishment and another million annually for the lifetime of the study.
Ginga @73: I was involved on the management side (BHP) of the industrial changes that took place in the Pilbara during the eighties and nineties. I am not sure that what happened at Rio Tinto would provide much guidance re how to handle the QANTAS dispute.
The Rio success was largely a consequence of the union members getting completely pissed off with the unions to the point where most of them went back to work during a strike. (A very, very brave thing to do at that time – the strike that collapsed was about union demands for the company to sack a strike breaker.)
Rio was smart enough to seize the opportunity and offer individual contracts that offered a better deal and more interesting jobs than they could get under the site agreement.) Not sure that there is a groundswell within the QANTAS unions or any suggestion that QANTAS is willing to offer a better deal to individuals.
Joyce reminds me of the industrial dinosaurs that got the Pilbara into the mess it was in the first place. The attitudes, the rhetoric is a real blast from the past.
Bring home our Aussie troops.three more dead and seven wounded. So sorry for their loved ones
A few words from me on the QANTAS matter …
It will come as no surprise that I stand 100% with the unions against attempts by QANTAS management to break their working conditions and ultimately the unions that underpin them. I would add that even were I not on the left, the last thing rational people want from people operating aircraft is low morale or the thought that if customers think worse of the brand, they will mainly blame people that the staff hate.
It seems to me that the unions ought to respond to the provocation by QANTAS by offering
a) to negotiate without preconditions and demanding that QANTAS show good faith and withdraw their lock out.
or
b) failing that, suggest that both parties maintain the status quo for 21 days and then meet — implying that they are willing to see their lockout and raise them three weeks.
During this time, the unions should run a strongly negative and very substantial campaign based on QANTAS management trying to turn QANTAS into something like Ryan Air in an attempt to profit gouge, cut corners on safety, overwork staff and screw the public as well as their staff. Anything that forces the share price down and prejudices goodwill goes in. The semi-educated Joyce thinks his lockout can “inflict pain” on the staff. Within hours the predictable Reith was letting fly on #theirABC on how to do IR.
Well let’s see who blinks first! I’d like to see the union movement club together to ensure that QANTAS workers were not put under undue pressure to settle by raising funds to support the staff. I think many of us would agree to chip in each fortnight to make this happen. This could be the start of a substantial fightback for the labour movement.
that all said …
I believe that this matter shows that the experiment with privatisation of QANTAS started under Hawke-Keating has been a failure. While it gave the government a momentary revenue bounce, the longterm consequence has been a steady decline in the quality of the airline, its international standing, and now as we see, a decline even in its claim to be the national flag carrier. Who would have thought back in 1988 that the head of the airline would see shutting it down as consistent with its longterm wellbeing. That Joyce did this on the day after a 71% pay rise simply underlines the absurdity of the position. His 96% stockholder approval vote for the “renumeration” (sic) package was actually cited by him on Inside Business as evidence that “management” had the backing of the shareholders for this war on QANTAS staff.
Despite being on the left — some would say the far left, I have no particular predisposition in favour of state ownership of businesses providing goods and services. It seems to me a good general rule that states should stick to “core business” and I construe that fairly narrowly. The less the capital requirements, the more the service is about meeting purely discretionary needs and wants, the more plausible it is for small groups of people to make arrangements to get the goods and services produced and distributed at adequate quality, the more it looks like something that the state ought to regulate rather than operate.
Airlines are an odd one because they almost always operate beyond the the boundaries of a single jurisdiction, require large amounts of capital, some of which would have their sunk cost amortsied over 20 years or more, have to carry massive liability and impose very heavily on the commons. It’s not feasible in most markets to have more than a handful of carriers and all of these have to be multiply regulated in something like real time in order to minimise the risk of catastrophe. That makes them, in many respects, greatly different from, say, train services or supermarket chains, but much more like banks.
As a general rule, I still think it would be tidier if most airlines were privately operated, but I wouldn’t make a fetish out of it and it seems to me that every major economy ought to have at least one state-owned and operated carrier, even if one wanted to have its operations audited and reported upon at arm’s length from the operating state. Joyce complains that rival airlines have access to cheap state-backed loans and other advantages. It seems to me that if Joyce is right, then perhaps QANTAS should be returned to public ownership.
I therefore disagree with Robert@26 when he says:
I don’t think the government would need to “subsidise” QANTAS. Nor of course do I care about the “surplus target”. Frankly, I think sensible folk like Robert ought not to allow the right to run this as a shibboleth. I think it would, on balance, be a very good use of public funds, because we could begin to repair the damage to QANTAS that has occurred since the sale and also begin even to make it a ‘greener’ airline. That is obviously going to require some new capital and some changes in organisation. It would also be nice to get rid of those schysters running it.
Wantok @ 71 That is exactly what I mean.
Qantas can do it, but foreign airlines are not allowed to. Quite an advantage.
I cant see how its likely to prove a challenge to the budget surplus – given that it makes a profit.
Fran @ 83:
Qantas originally came under government ownership because it was the only way the airline could afford to replace its war-weary fleet of Shorts flying boats and converted Lancaster bombers (12 passenger maximum, all sitting side-saddle in the bomb bay) with Lockheed Constellations (54 passenger seats, all facing the front of the aeroplane, and no bomb-bay) and remain in Australian ownership.
The alternative was for Hudson Fysh to sell out to Imperial Airways / BOAC — something which he’d endeavoured to avoid doing since the 1920s — or close the airline completely.
If they nationalise it they have got to pay for it and assume responsibility for its debts.
That would be about ten billion off their bottom line, I’d expect.
yeah i’d like to see our troops come home. let the taliban gloat, their time will come when the afghan people are ready to mete it out.
if anything, our troops should be up helping our fuzzy wuzzy angels.
we owe them.
su I thought they already had a couple of cohort studies going on people affected by Chernobyl? Is that article saying those studies are going to be defunded? It seems to be about not funding a new one?
Anyway, I suspect it won’t be possible to get a long-term study of exposure and risk from Fukushima if the levels of exposure are generally as low as in the report I linked to.
quokka at 36, are you taking that 20 children with 9bec/kg from the link I attached or somewhere else? The link I attached says
which is, translated quite literally, “the children who expressed over 20 bec/kg were 9 people.” It doesn’t say that 20 children had over 9 bec/kg.
Can we please keep all comments about the Qantas lockout on Helen’s open thread?
http://larvatusprodeo.net/2011/10/30/qantas-industrial-action-open-thread/
I’ll be deleting any further comments on Qantas which appear on this thread today.
Papua New Guinea is engaged in a war with someone?
I hadn’t noticed.
“”"if anything, our troops should be up helping our fuzzy wuzzy angels.
we owe them.”"”
Yep, and not exploit them for their gold/silver/copper resources, like Ross Garnaut has and is.
And I’ve just deleted one!
If people can’t get there from the link, try the front page.
Sg, this was to be the first one that gathered all of the data from the different countries involved, I think there are some regional cohorts and studies of Liquidators but there has to date been little or no harmonization of methodology across country borders. As you know there are masses of data and published material, much of which remains untranslated and the interpretation of which is highly contested and ARCH was set up to coordinate and direct research to address some of the methodological objections raised to eg, Bandazhevsky’s work on cardiac effects, as well as performing a similar function to the RERF in monitoring the affected population in the long term. One of the great frustrations for me is the way in which commentary often assumes that the state of knowledge is not in flux, in actual fact there are new things emerging even about the least controversial effects, the TC’s. There is a very helpful summary of the current state of affairs written by a Belgian delegate to UNSCEAR here (Pdf)
Also the rationale for ARCH and the strategic planning around research priorities including more details about the Lifespan Cohort Study are available at their website. The two downloadable documents on the right sidebar detail the proposals for the cohort study, at first glance it seems to involve a mixture of continuing to follow cohorts that are about to be dropped from active follow-up and establishing new cohorts of evacuees etc.
First GRNs sponsored bill becomes federal law. Big win for self-govt in ACT and NT.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-11-02/gallagher-on-territory-rights-bill/3614206?section=act