With calls to save Qantas from “Asianisation” outside, and at times angry attacks on management defence of its decisions inside, the Qantas AGM in a University of NSW lecture theatre in Sydney this morning has turned into a sometimes ferocious showdown between shareholder unionists and the executive.
The arguments were still raging as this was published. The national secretary of the TWU Tony Sheldon accused management of lying about the cost advantages of Virgin Australia, pointing out that they paid more for casual labour and used between 6-7 employees to turn around jets compare to 3-4 at Qantas.
His claims led to CEO Alan Joyce agreeing that was true but arguing Virgin had other advantages, while chairman Leigh Clifford objected to being called to task for previously claiming that unionists in Australia had too many rights.
An 85-year-old economic historian, a Mr Tilburn, tore into the board for failing to resolve industrial disputes in a timely manner, saying there were scoundrels on both sides, but that it had to stop waging war on its employees to move forward.
He was preceded by the federal secretary of the licensed engineers union, Steve Purvinas, launching into an attack on Qantas for showering gifts including bottles of Grange, upgrades for family members and iPads on parliamentarians to curry favour.
In a meeting in which the question and answers session was dominated by union members, the assistant national secretary of the ASU Linda White engaged management in a dissection of its claim that not a single Australian job would be lost through its Asian venture to launch a single-aisle premium carrier in Singapore or Kuala Lumpur.
That discussion lead to Clifford saying he knew of no current moves to mount a private equity bid to take over Qantas and adding that he believed that the failed 2007 bid would have been a disaster had it gone through.
After the initial rounds between the union shareholders and the management table, the rhetoric began to cool with a to and fro discussion between Clifford, Joyce and their antagonists.
Before the arguments between the table and the floor broke out, Joyce made one claim that was completely false, when he said the Airbus A320 NEO jet wouldn’t have happened if Qantas hadn’t taken a leading role.
The jet would have been built without Qantas, because of the need for more than 20,000 such new single-aisle jets in the world by about 2030.
There are times when the mendaciousness of QF management leaves me breathless.
Next they will be saying the 787 only happened because they ordered 50. Which they later deferred (possibly one of the few decent decisions QF Management has made in recent years)
God protect us from fools and liars
Ben, how can you write this article and not mention the elephant in
the room, Alan Joyce’s 71% salary increase? Surely it would have
been better for the Board to hold any salary increase for the CEO
until after the wage negotiations with employees was over. How
insensitive and typical of the modern day corporation – profit and
real pay increases are for executives. And the corporations workers-
they take the burden of the company’s perilous financial position
in their wage packet and lack of job security. Makes you think there
was something in socialist ideas after all!!
“Weapon of Joyce”.
This is an Irish joke isnt it
@KENNETHROBINSON2 Posted Friday, 28 October 2011 at 8:44 pm | Permalink
This is an Irish joke isnt it
Well, I wouldn’t start from here…..
Seems to me, with these privatizations of so-called “iconic” operations like Qantas, an opportunity was missed. (Though I was not living in Oz at the time to know for sure how it was done; curiously there appears to be nothing on this in the Wikipedia entry! I cannot tell if the government retains a “golden share”. Foreign ownership is 45%.)
A significant (controlling) fraction of the shares could have been reserved for the staff; with a large workforce this could have been practical. As the corporate PR goes, it would have aligned the interests of its workforce and management. It would have also locked in the spirit of the privatization, in a more meaningful and functional manner than the simple requirement of 51% Australian owned. The early sale of 20% to BA was a totally regressive thing to do, especially given the reputation and customer-unfriendly nature of that airline, not to mention the lack of any strategic thinking behind it.
The neo-liberal types will shriek at this idea. But, Qantas did deserve its special status in this regard. Not only was it “the oldest continuously operated airline in the world and the second oldest in the world overall”, it was built into the highly respected international airline by almost 50 years of government ownership (and in reality from its inception because of its dependence on the postal contract; then the Flying Doctor Service). Unlike many of the other privatized entities (electric power etc) Qantas was and is a highly visible flag-waver for Australia throughout the world.
Are there any examples of such staff co-ownership? Yes. One that comes to mind is John Lewis Partnership in the UK. They run the John Lewis department store in Oxford street (and the place to go for almost anything, rather than Harrods for mere voyeurism) and the Waitrose supermarket chain–always my choice when I lived in the UK. Here is what Wiki says:
[The John Lewis Partnership is an employee-owned UK partnership which operates John Lewis department stores, Waitrose supermarkets and a number of other services. The company is owned by a trust on behalf of all its employees — known as partners – who have a say in the running of the business and receive a share of annual profits, which is usually a significant addition to their salary. The group is the third largest UK private company in the Sunday Times Top Track 100 for 2010. Additionally, John Lewis also has the distinction of being UK’s best high-street website after beating M&S in October 2010. ]
So I might agree with those conservative politicians (eg. Barry O’Farrell today) and others who are demanding government action to stop the current troubles. But not the kind they have in mind. Re-nationalize it and re-privatize it as a staff-owned partnership.