Striking the union

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has won. He played hardball with the unions and a flaccid Labor government was not there for the workers. The $5 million-a-year Irishman can now move forward and "modernise" the country's one-time flagship airline with cheap crew and service from Asia.

This is profoundly sad and negative for Australia - and the sort of compromised dividend one may expect of privatisation and outsourcing.

But I fear an even sadder prognosis long-term for the breaking of the unions which have been effectively vilified by the endlessly indignant dominance of the corporate powers. They bellow at how hard done-by they are when a union stands up for workers' rights or pay entitlements. Just as they up the bizarrely huge salaries of their executives. What is the CEO of crumbling Coles getting now? $15 million a year? With a staff dominated by students on casual hours?

The worker is being systematically devalued.
The idea is that the worker also must be de-powered.

Solidarity has been all the workers have had. The company of peers and the organisation of the working force of the union has been their stability, ensuring that they are able to have planned lives. Workers actually pay for this. Union dues are not cheap. But the union goes in to bat. The union defends workers against exploitation, standing up for their rights, achieving for them things like sick leave entitlements, holidays and wages which have some accord with cost of living increases. They have done this through strength of numbers and, sometimes, some very harrowing conflict. But they have never tried to destroy business - obviously, since they also wish to protect the source of their employment. Doh.

But companies always cry foul and other countries with bigger, stronger, ruthless corporate interests have broken the backs of unions. The word "union" is almost a dirty word in America. And it is becoming so here in Australia. Unions have been merging and fighting for their own existence.

Young, new workers, have not heard of unions and hence have no idea that their fair work conditions were negotiated for them by unions.

The contracts they sign these days have to reflect these rights, long ago fought for by the unions. But contracts remove that old thing, security of employment. Less and less does one see "permanent full-time employment". It is an option companies would rather not offer.

Gradually they have moved on to fairly inviting contracts which may pay more but will call upon certain added commitments to the company - unpaid overtime, perhaps. They present and couch the contracts in such a way that the new employee will feel special.
But that is a well-wrought illusion. The contracts don't have to be renewed, if the company so wishes. This keeps workers on their toes.

Without proper contracts, they can end up as casuals.
And casual work is the direction in which the workplace is headed. It is the dream workplace for the Alan Joyces of this world.
It is the perfect arrangement for big business. It is cheaper to have three casuals than one full-time permanent staffer.
A casual workforce is the corporate ideal. Cheap, cheap, cheap.
They may be paid more by the hour, but they don't know what hours they will get.

And, of course, looking at things like aircraft maintenance, outsourced casual workforce with low pay expectations, are much better for the bottom line.

Casuals only work when they are invited to work.
They may work one day a week or five, depending on demand. Maybe none.

They have no entitlements.
If casuals are sick, they are not working and hence not paid.
The company calls up another casual.
If a casual wants a holiday, a casual may take a holiday. Their time is their own. The company is not committed to them, so there is no holiday pay. Just another casual to fill the gap.

The phenomenon of the casual worker has been growing prodigiously - but quietly. Twentysix per cent of the workforce and rising.
Who is going to speak out for them? There is no organisation for them of which I know.

So, if you don't have a regular or predicable income, how do you get a loan, take out a mortgage, buy a home?

You don't.
Forget health insurance.

But looking ahead, as outsourcing takes over to ensure the company profits required for shareholder affluence and millionaire CEOs, we see a new generation of workers in this insecure condition. A new, growing underclass.

And, unless there is a big change in the way the financial world functions, these young people will not be buying their own homes. Indeed, they may have to have incomes subsidised by pensions to lift them off the poverty line. How would that work? They'd be better off on the dole.

The future looks messy.

I look at the babies of this new baby boom and wonder about what they will face as the workforce of tomorrow.

Renting properties rather than buying, being unable to forward plan their own lives for fear of losing casual shifts...

A culture of increasing socio-economic disparity is emerging - along with it a population growth of amotivated and unfulfilled people.

It is a bit scary.
But maybe, just maybe, some of tomorrow's workers will stand up for each other - and maybe even invent something called a union.

Qantas. Why do you insult us so?

Qantas is failing Adelaide?
Tourism Commission chief Andrew McEvoy is right. Good on him for sounding off.
It is time Qantas was held to account. But perhaps Mr McEvoy has not gone far enough.
Perhaps Qantas is failing Australia.
It is not just that it is not putting Adelaide on its flight paths. It is that the national carrier has turned into the worst of all aerial cattle trucks. It insults its passengers –we good people who pay its bills and keep it aloft.


It packs us in mercilessly with never a seat to spare – and, worse, with less leg room than one finds elsewhere. Mean, nasty skimpy 31inch seat pitch which means that the moment the person in front reclines, one is pinned in. Trapped. Don’t even think about crossing your knees.

It is a sickening irony that Qantas plays inflight DVT (deep vein thrombosis) exercise videos to passengers who can’t move a muscle. Unless they are in Business or First, of course.

Don’t believe what you hear projected by the marketing spin doctors and travel writers. They all travel Business. They have no idea what hell we real people go through. Of course the executives will be screaming with indignation and saying that I am absolutely wrong in my descriptions. But this is my opinion and not theirs. My experience and not theirs. I’ve done the hard yards - a decade of trans-Pacific flights in Qantas economy. I have watched conditions worsening year by year, fewer cabin crew working harder, tempers fraying. Less oxygen, too, perhaps. I always seem to get sick after one of these flights.

The other trick Qantas has learned is to deny its passengers choice in seat allocation.

There is a mystery to this procedure now. Apparently only uber-platinum frequent flyers can get a decent seat allocation.
The rest of us can consider ourselves lucky if we even get to sit with our travelling companions.

No blame to the staff, poor darlings. It is not their fault they deliver the bad news. And, however frustrated, we passengers must never take it out on them.

Nonetheless, I am regularly dumped at the very back of the plane by the check in staff. It does not matter how many months earlier I have booked or how early I arrive at the airport. The seating hell is the same. Hateful. I have ended up feeling very demoralised because over and over again, I have been denied the one simple request I make – a window seat, please.

What has happened to Qantas’s ability to perform civilized seat allocations? What has happened to our once-cherished, national pride airline?

This year I baulked and flew United where, at least, one has an option for Economy Plus seating which provides a dignity of leg room but, otherwise, conventional economy conditions. Yes, they actually let you choose seating when you book. And, that bit of extra leg room is all one wants on the long hauls. Ahh.

United, however, gives lots more. It is a very pleasant airline, albeit they tell me it has been in a financial crisis for years.


I used to be so proud of Qantas.
It was a symbol of my beloved country, my laid-back and friendly fellow countrymen, our high standards and good quality of life...
The flying kangaroo used to warm the old heart wherever one saw it.
Now, I apologise for Qantas to my international friends. How embarrassing.

Qantas has retained the best safety record, which remains a significant point of pride – but it has cheapened itself with the worst economy cabin conditions and ever-declining passenger service.

So I was not surprised, on an Internet airlines standards page, to read:
Qantas' A330s "make the live sheep boats to the Middle East look positively luxurious (the boats have more room, fewer travellers and more interesting conversation).”

It is downright sad - not just for the airline but for all Australians on whom it reflects.

Ills of air travel

Air travel has now descended to a point where one can only say it has become a squalid experience.

I am old enough to remember when people dressed to travel. It was big deal - even in economy.

Now, one can't say that air travel is cheap. It is not. But it certainly is popular, despite the fact that it also is hell. Has become hell.
It has become an animal scrum.

I truly believe that most people are really nice - and interesting. But put them in the miserable airport holding pens waiting to get on planes and they are all the enemy. They sit about looking suspiciously at their fellow passengers, readying themselves for a ruthless ritual of queue-push and trample they to get to onto the plane. As if it's going to leave without them. When called in to board first (after the elite travellers, wheelchairs and babies), because you're one of the poor bloody sods allocated seats in the arse end of the plane, you suddenly find access to the departure gate blocked by a cram of scowling people. You have to squeeze between these sods with the better seats because they simply don't want to let you get on ahead of them. They want to be first on so they can hold up all progress down the plane by fussing around in the aisles while trying to jam ten tons of handluggage into the overhead lockers. The logic of loading the rear passengers first seems to strike some nerve of outrage in the modern traveller. So they push their way on among the tail-seaters and there they are, blocking the aisles in elaborate displays of aerial luggage juggling.

The airlines have their passengers where they want them - absolutely under their power. Well, let's not say the airlines as such. Whatever service or product one mentions these days is in busy answering to voracious shareholders and boards which forever seek higher and higher profits. There is no such thing as enough profit. Only "more". Hence, the interminable cut-backs and compromises.

I've become very sad and disillusioned by Qantas in recent years. A lifetime of passionate loyalty to the "national carrier" has been eroded into, well, straight-out aversion. I feel badly treated. Disrespected.
It is a very long time now since I had a civilized seat allocation from Qantas. It does not matter how early I book and pay - a year ahead! I am still victim to some perverse check-in seat allocation which will put me exactly where I hate to be, bumping around in the tail of the plane. Yes, I know it's the safest place. But it is not the most comfortable. I happen to hate it.
Yet, somehow, there is never any other seat to be had - even if I check in four hours ahead. Told that I can only get seat allocation at check-in, I al told at check-in that all the seats already have been allocated. Am I the only person who can only get seat-allocation at check-in. Qantas told me last time I inquired that I simply did not have enough Frequent Flyer points to merit a good seat allocation. I am only a Bronze flyer. Therefore worthless.
So, this time I chose Singapore Airlines.
Uh-oh. Arriving early at Adelaide airport to get seat allocations, where was I seated? Right at the back of the tail. Again!
And on the next leg to Frankfurt? Well, not quite in the back rows - but in the centre block of the tail section. This was another experience altogether - very odd. It seems the air stewards just can't see you there as they roam the aisles with their trays of drinks or snacks.

On both legs, the aircraft were filled to capacity. Indeed, I heard one check-in queuer in Adelaide mention that the airline had phoned to offer Business class seating if she would reschedule for the following day - the plane was overbooked.
Out of Singapore, Singapore Airlines turned into the Star Alliance flight which meant that it was also taking Lufthanser passengers and those of several other airlines. Needless to say, it was packed to the gunwhales, so to speak.
And there is the barrel over which the airlines have us. Volume is all. Sardine travelling at all costs, sorry, I mean profits.
So it comes to pass that the passengers are just a hapless form of product - willing to accept the myriad inadequacies, most of them with no idea that it was ever otherwise.

And, here comes the crunch, they travel packed in together against all rules of personal space, cheek to jowl with strangers in proximity they would tolerate in no other circumstance. They are fed a thin supply of oxygen to make them docile and drowsy. And, in sharing this meagre air, they share generously the myriad germs being introduced amongst them. Yes, I sat beside a sore-throat and coughing Malaysian accountant on the first leg and across the aisle from a French woman with an incessantly sneezing, nose-blowing streaming cold on the second leg. An ugh of ambient illness. And, that is not counting the chorus of sneezing, hooting and coughing from the rest of the section. Bugs and viruses from everywhere poured into an an aerial petrie dish.
I give myself three days before I find come down with my share of these illnesses. It is the dividend of every long-distance air trip.

Not only do we pay a lot of money to travel, it costs us.
Yes, a squalid business it is.
It is time for some organised air rage.