Posted on 10/29/2011 12:03:51 AM PDT by naturalman1975
QANTAS has grounded its entire domestic and international fleet of aircraft and will lock out all staff involved in its industrial dispute from Monday night.
The incredible move, coming in the middle of a bitter dispute with staff, will strand thousands of passengers in Australia and around the world.
"We are grounding the Qantas fleet now," Qantas chief Alan Joyce has said.
This means:
* passengers in 12 planes at airport gates at the time of the announcement had to disembark;
* 64 planes currently in the air, carrying 7000 passengers, are continuing to their destinations, but passengers with connecting flights will be grounded and given other accommodation;
* an estimated 13,000 passengers will be affected in the next 24 hours alone.
The lockout will begin at 8pm AEDT on Monday, but Mr Joyce has said to maintain safety standards meant the grounding had to be effective from "right now".
"We are locking out until the unions withdraw their extreme claim and reach agreement with us," Mr Joyce has told a press conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
“I wouldn’t mind being stranded in Australia.”
It would be a nice place if it wasn’t for the extreme PC/left wing political situation.
Once knew a wealthy businessman who had done a number of decently sized startups with good success. He swore if his employees even threatened to unionize that he would shut down immediately and take the $$$ hit. His logic was “If they want to XXXX me over, I’ll return the favor...NOW.”
He explained that he’d take a financial loss right then or potentially far more by running an unprofitable co. But his real bottom line was that ‘he’ started and ran the show with his $$$ and work and no union was going to walk in and dictate squat to him.
I’ll always admire him for that.
LOCK THEM OUT! FOR A LONG TIME! MAKE THEM CAVE!
The Aussies unions screwed everything durning the war. The longshoremen went on strike and the US Army was used to unload ships. It was found out the army did it faster even though they were not trained.
I’d love to see US companies have the balls and brilliance to make a similar move—hard ball time. Let’s play :-l.
It wasn’t just Australian unions that caused trouble during the war. American unions did too.
Of course, growing up in Hyannis MA near the Kennedys made him a Republican at an early age ...
and a necessary and smart move...
In after “in before the rain man reference.” :-)
The pilots will have to find a way home too! :-)
Very interesting. Maybe the crews have to get home some other way, too?
Not just in Australia, but here in San Francisco as well. Check out good old Harry Bridges (an Australian) who lead the ILWU in SF during the War.
The Industrial Workers of the World and the Communist Party had both attempted to organize longshoremen, sailors and fishermen in the 1920s. The Communist Party’s union never made much headway on the West Coast, but did attract a number of former IWW members and other militants, such as Harry Bridges, an Australian-born sailor who became a longshoreman after coming to the United States. Those activists soon joined the International Longshoremen’s Association, despite their reservations about its reputation for corruption and lack of militancy, when passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act in 1933 led to an explosion in union membership in the ILA among West Coast longshoremen.
Yes. This is the way to go. LOVE IT!
Here’s an example from my area:
http://www.warbirdforum.com/inquirer.htm
The thug UAW union boss at this aircraft factory made this statement about the illegal wildcat strike his local engaged in:
“If I had brothers at the front line who needed the 10 or 12 planes that were sacrificed [in the strike], I’d let them die, if necessary, to preserve our way of life or rights or whatever you want to call it,” he told a Washington Post reporter.
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