Belly,

The maintenance side of aviation is a high cost area and management, not only that of QANTAS, will do their best to minimise this cost.

Many airlines send their aircraft to locations for major maintenance where labour costs are lower. Maintenance procedures tend to be fixed by law so it leaves labour costs as the only area where management can make a reduction.

This is not a new phenomenon and has been a constant sore point with most aviation organisations here and overseas.

That there are side effects there is no doubt.

There does not appear to be a solution that will satisfy all parties and I doubt there ever will be. The whys and wherefores are very complex and are constantly changing with the advances in technology.

Interesting thread Belly. Keep it going.

Take it easy.

SD

Belly, people in business have competition. Not so for unions.
So you are comparing apples with spinach.

Yes indeed, the 420k quoted is for working 4 weeks on, two weeks
off, quite common in mining. If they work 3 weeks on, 3 weeks off,
they "only" earn around the 300 and something mark, the poor
laundry guys.

The thing is, are unions there to do what is fair and just, or
are they out for all that they can get. Clearly their officials
admit to the latter, they want all that they can get and make
no apologies. So don't give me this nonsense about sticking up
for the downtrodden. Union greed is there, backed by the Govt.

As to airlines, last time I checked Singapore Airlines were quite
safe, so were Emirates. If our boys want to be thugs, well let
other airlines dominate, ours will go the way of Ansett, whose staff
also never imagined in could go broke. They learned the hard way.

Yabby,

The demise of Ansett was caused by a multitude of factors, wages was just one part of it.

Aviation is a complex business and it usually takes more than one issue to bring a company down.

Take it easy.

SD

Shaggy, I fully agree with you. I used to deal with Ansett every
week, what a mob of arrogant sods, living in the past.

The thing is, the world is changing, we live in the past or adapt.
Some businesses in Australia will adapt, the rest will just have
to die and learn the hard way. Going back to the 60-70s as
some of the thug unions are trying to do, is doomed to failure.

But people clearly need more pain to learn. So be it.

Yabby,

I feel there are changes afoot that will dictate some very big changes in Australia as a whole.

I agree the rampant unionism of the past is a goner, there may still be pockets of it, and they are possibly needed still, but the changes we will see in Oz will go beyond unionism, carbon taxes, poker machines and such like.

Our politicians of all stripes have no control over the country's future, in part due to incompetence, and a total lack of vision, as a result I feel our direction will be dictated elsewhere. There is too much change happening around us for us to be able to continue in the good old Australian way even if we want too.

There are some interesting times ahead and some of them will be not so good.

Take it easy.

SD

Union strength and miss used power from the period 1950 till 1980 died at the time EBA and reform started by a labor government commenced.
The very union I target is trying, as hard as it can, to change.
Yes IR is going to be totally different, already is.
Sorry, as an ex union official, not happy to say this, that subsidy mentioned above will have a tragic even because costs are more important than people.
1 in 5 yabby gee are you sure the problem is unions?
Wages , safety net, things work choices took away must stay.
But using EBA is the future.
And trade off can be of benefit to both sides.
Cut wages if you want to cut productivity, and skills, if you want the class of workers to drop.
Market forces do rule.
Is it understood unemployment is feared if it drops below 5%?
See then workers are free to work in other jobs, it is fact unemployment of lower figures is seen to threaten.
Police officers, long term ones left to go coal mining in the 90,s to chase big money.
NSW bust workers fly in fly out to WA to earn more.
Wages need not be blamed for every failure.
Right now, as informed folk knew long ago, Manufacturing is bad, maybe dieing.
If wages is the only or main reason, then to fix it we would need to drop them to about $4 an hour.
And the wages of those producing the products that manufacturing uses, see the end results?
If the general workforce one day had such a reduction in wages/living standards we would all suffer.
Yabby 1 unionist in every 5 workers are you mate fair dinkum?
If you shot every one of us would wages drop over night.
Is it worth while sending kids to work for nothing to replace us??