Those poor Qantas employees….

Posted on October 30, 2011 by KG

From the letters page of the Australian:
“I THINK the travelling public should have some idea of just how poorly off our Qantas baggage handlers are.
For starters, they get paid upwards of 20 per cent above the industry rate and earn between $70,000 to $85,000 a year including penalty rates but not overtime. Overtime is paid at double time as are any public holidays…”
And much, much more…via Andrew Bolt
Sack the thieving, useless bastards and offer the jobs to retirees. There’d be minimal industrial action, great attendance records and less thieving from baggage.

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25 Responses to Those poor Qantas employees….

  1. pmofnz says:
    October 30, 2011 at 11:07

    Hear, Hear! I await the malaise crossing the ditch. It will only be a matter of time as the unions get stroppy.

  2. KG says:
    October 30, 2011 at 11:12

    You bet, PM. I see some clown over at No Minister was claiming that Key is keeping the unions in line! In his dreams…..

    • Adolf Fiinkensein says:
      October 30, 2011 at 11:25

      Some perspective among the spittle, if you don’t mind.

      Qantas is grounded.

      Air New Zealand is flying.

      Now, what else have you got?

      Clown indeed!

      • pmofnz says:
        October 30, 2011 at 11:47

        Great to see you patrolling your favourite uber-right lickspittles blogs for any anti-Nat sentiments.

        Adolf, can’t wait till Nov 27th when your illustrious leader is cold calling a few ‘last cab off the rank’ potential coalition partners.

        :mrgreen:

      • KG says:
        October 30, 2011 at 13:38

        Air New Zealand is only still in existence courtesy of the NZ taxpayer Adolf.
        There’s no spittle around here–but there are posters and commenters capable of feeling shame and remorse when appropriate, something Key’s arse-lickers (and yes, I’m looking at you) seem incapable of.
        We’re conservatives, you see, not socialists posing as such.

      • WebWrat says:
        October 30, 2011 at 17:11

        Mount Cook Airlines:
        http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nzlscant/wigley.htm
        Preceeded by:
        http://www.nzetc.org/tm/scholarly/tei-Gov10_12Rail-t1-body-d4.html

        Mount Cook Group, probably the most dynamic, innovative and definitely the longest lasting of the pioneer tourist companies.

        They had offices all over the world, Tokyo, London, New York and Los Angles to name a few. They booked tours in these offices, picked the groups up at Auckland or Christchurch in tour buses or HS748s and provided them all of their activities for their stay in New Zealand.

        The Mount Cook Group was exactly that, a group. They owned amphibious aircraft and a catamaran boat (Bay of Islands), light twins for service north of Auckland, 6 x HS748 airliners, ski planes at Mount Cook, float planes at Te Anau and ski fields. They had GA (General Aviation) light aircraft based at Mount Cook, Fox Glacier, Franz Josef and Queenstown …. the Q’town operation flew tourists to Milford to do the boat cruises.

        Mount Cook Group also owned a truck transport division and did agricultural aviation work, i.e. rabbit poisoning and aerial topdressing.

        My connection? I flew ski planes for ten years (’85 to ’95). In my time there, pilot numbers peaked at 19 and aircraft numbered 11 Cessna 185 (6 seat) ski planes and 3 Pilatus Porter PC-6 (10 seat) turbine ski planes. In my 10 years at Mount Cook I flew 32,000 passengers and did 8,500 snow landings …. now work that out for, say, an average of 15 pilots for that ten years! And this in an environment that lost about 50% of flying time due to weather!

        The key to the success of the ski planes was the airline bringing the tourists into Mount Cook then getting on their pre-booked ski plane flight. Same for the Mount Cook tour buses that were always scheduled to come to Mount Cook. Our record number of pax carried for one day was 520 people landed on the glacier. 28 HS748s (remember Mount Cook only owned 6) came in to Mount Cook, plus the car park was full of buses!

        Referring to the link at the top, “Over 40,000 visitors per year are now flown to remote the alpine glaciers to take photographs, ski, climb or hunt.” Don’t forget that these were mostly people that Mount Cook BROUGHT into the country through their own overseas offices.

        After Harry Wigley died in 1980, Mount Group became a public company and Air New Zealand proceeded to buy up all the shares until they owned the company.

        At about the time the article in the above link was written, ANZ had almost finished asset stripping, dismantling and eliminating the Mount Cook Group. There are now no airliners flying into Mount Cook airport, no Mount Cook tour buses coming in. All the offices are gone and I assume that 40,000 less tourists come into the country. Mount Cook Airlines are now just a few ATR airliners in ANZ livery doing the domestic routes. They used to have Mount Cook Airlines in wee letters under the Koru, but I don’t think they even bother with that now.

        The ski plane division got stripped and then sold off. It is now privately owned with about 3 aircraft and a couple of pilots sitting around all day waiting to do one or two flights. The last white bait stand up the river …. waiting for the few punters off the road that manage to evade Air Safaris, Southern Lakes Helicopters and Helicopter Line further down the line.

        What really griped me after I left Mount Cook ANZs useless management managed to send the outfit down the tubes and the bloody gummint used MY tax dollars to bail the mongrels out!

        I now fly Jetstar!

        • KG says:
          October 30, 2011 at 17:24

          Good background stuff. Thanks Wrattie. You’re right–they’re a bunch of corporate bastards who’ve survived courtesy of crony capitalism.
          (And Adolf thinks that constitutes “success”….no doubt he also thinks Aeroflot is a shining example of free enterprise.)

          • WebWrat says:
            October 30, 2011 at 17:35

            Isn’t it amazing how a Govt agent can destroy such a successful enterprise and no one bats an eye.

            During the ’50s my father tried to get West Coast Airways going on the coast, but went tits up because the govt of the day made it mandatory for airlines to charge 10% more than NAC.

    • mawm says:
      October 30, 2011 at 11:55

      If only we had a PM with balls. :roll: Maggie certainly had bigger ones than our current incumbant, while the one over the ditch might have them but, as she is in bed with the unionists anyway, they won’t do the country any good anyway.

      The only time Johnkey stood up to the unions was so that wealthy fillum makers could get cheap deals here……and now his favourite spoilt brat producer has brought a convicted murderer to NZ. One’s gotta love the ethics of the film industry……..and National Party politicians.

      Hey Adolf, Air NewZiln flies because it is run by the government and if things go bad Johnkey will just dip into his tax-payer funded endless supply of money to bail it out. He does for everything else! One’s gotta love the ease with which he hands out our dollars.

      • mort says:
        October 30, 2011 at 12:35

        Qantas has pandered to the unions in the past because it was in their benefit to do so. It was essentially these same 3 unions that drove Ansett to the wall when Air NZ took them over. At the time AirNZ tried to get the same kind of policies implemented, namely reducing cabin and cockpit staff to the industry standard, and to bring into line the baggage handling staff, who were worse than the Qantas lot. Qantas played along with the union then, pulled the anti-Kiwi line and hey presto, in conjunction with the Aust version of the CAA Ansett were grounded. They were bankrupt within a very short period thereafter. Qantas having disposed of their main competition then proceeded to increase the price of flights and have reaped the benefits since. They repeated the scenario with Tiger Airways this year, and a compliant CAA grounded the entire Tiger fleet for 1 pilot’s actions (why they didn’t just ground the 1 pilot has not been answered).
        But now the Unions are wanting payback for that previous support. A new CEO who wasn’t complicit in the previous dealings, rightly sees profitability ebbing away and can pin-point the reason for it, so acts in the companies’ interest grounding the planes to break the stalemate that has been brewing for 7 months.
        What is funny about this is that once again the Giltard is being hoist by her own petard. The FairWork Australia laws have provision to dispel the grounding entirely and get the fleet flying again, but it means that the union will have to cede their position and the whole affair gets handed over to an independent arbiter to adjudicate on both sides’ positions. The Union knows their position is untenable, and so will lose if that happens.
        This is a smart move by the CEO, a little bit of bad publicity now to create a standardised industry position later, which will improve the carriers overall profitability and survivability into a somewhat uncertain future.

        The winner out of this will be Air NZ as their 20% investment in Virgin will be rewarded massively. Spare capacity in NZ will be soaked up by shifting the planes over to Aus for the day or 2 it takes to settle down, and Giltard is forced to pull the pin on the union. People will remember that it was Virgin who didn’t try to extort exorbitant fares out of the stranded and just wanted to fill the planes and get more capacity in the air at a time of need.
        Virgin are playing this one very well.

        As per usual for Giltard, everything she touches turns to shit…. hahaha

        • The Gantt Guy says:
          October 30, 2011 at 12:41

          Yes indeed, mort, Giltard has the reverse midas touch. Either way she loses out of this one.

          Several weeks ago (IIRC) it was reported the unions were demanding a 5% year-on-year pay increase for the next 5 years, and wanted the company to install union hacks into a number of key positions in the company. Again IIRC, Joyce warned them at the time that he doesn’t bluff, but they proceeded anyway and Joyce has been found to be as good as his word.

  3. Ross Miller says:
    October 30, 2011 at 12:23

    Great how the uber right loons refuse to allow the facts get in the way of a good story. They are blinded by their visceral hatred of John Key. Jealous of his personal success and jealous of his ability to take the country with him. Get over it guys. Can’t be good for your state of mind.

    The last recorded data by Stats NZ has it that the days lost in NZL by strikes is now at the lowest since 1984.

    National has held the Unions in line. Labour’s IR policy will turn that around.

    Don’t the ‘facts’ just piss you off?
    And after this comment the clown is out of here–we’ll leave this one up for the entertainment value. This fuckwit wouldn’t know what “uber right” looked like if one bit him on the arse in broad daylight. KG

    • mawm says:
      October 30, 2011 at 12:33

      Facts like the PPTA holding the education of our kids hostage by refusing to implement the standards program.

      There is more to unionism than strikes…….any loon could have told you that.

    • Redbaiter says:
      October 30, 2011 at 12:59

      Oh look, the gutless little Key besotted commie scumbag has dared to venture out of his protected zone. Another knee pad wearing fake rightist who needs to fuck off to Labour where he really belongs.

  4. The Gantt Guy says:
    October 30, 2011 at 12:30

    And let’s not forget the Gnats’ masterful and commanding handling of the teacher and principal unions over national standards, shall we? They were elected in 2008 with a massive mandate to introduce national standards and they’ve had absolutely no success in squashing unions opposition. Not one teacher or principal fired. Not one Board of Trustees replaced with an administrator. Keeping the unions in line? pfft. The unions were busted by Saint Ruth back in the ’90s and both Liarbore and National have benefitted from her masterful keeping of the unions in line.

    Don’t the ‘facts’ just piss you off?

    • Viking says:
      October 30, 2011 at 13:51

      Well get your facts right. It was Bill Birch who busted the unions. Ruth fucked the small business people.
      Still at it as well. No brains or idea about how the world works. All mouth and trousers.

      • The Gantt Guy says:
        October 30, 2011 at 14:18

        You’re right, in that Birch saw the Employment Contracts Act home, after he replaced Richardson in the Finance role.

        Ruth did not “fuck small business people”. Ruth saved New Zealand in much the same way as Douglas did in 1984, taking the Douglas reforms the next step. The only disgrace is that her program of reform wasn’t seen through, or New Zealand would be a lot less fucked now than what it is.

    • Cadwallader says:
      October 30, 2011 at 14:38

      National Standards are on the way though…aren’t they?

  5. Redbaiter says:
    October 30, 2011 at 16:46

    “And after this comment the clown is out of here–we’ll leave this one up for the entertainment value. This fuckwit wouldn’t know what “uber right” looked like if one bit him on the arse in broad daylight. ”

    Damn right. Well done. Weasel cheers for everything the left cheer for and then claims to oppose them.