QANTAS is to close its Sydney maintenance base, shedding 480

[NM]

NM,
I apoligise if my post has offended you, that was not my intention. I am entitled to express my views regarding your comments, whether you agree with them or not.

No, not offended. Just surprised you interpretted my comments that way. And yes, you are 100% entitled to your opinion. A forum like this, without opinions, would be a boring place indeed. I am reminded of a famous quote:

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
-Voltaire
paraphrased in The Friends of Voltaire, 1907

Yes, it is unfortunate that jobs will be lost. However, this is a part of life and is not unique to the airline maintenance industry. It happens almost every day to someone, somewhere in Australia, and the unfortunate peope affected by this commercial decision are no more or less deserving of sympathy than anyone else whose position is made redundant.

My kids keep complaining "that's not fair" or "this is not fair" when things don't go their way. I have to remind them that life is not fair. Employment uncertainty is a part of life in my industry, where jobs are cut regularly as a result of fluxuating short-term financial measurments used by many organisations. Is that fair? No. Is that life? Yep. I choose to remain in this industry because I enjoy the challenges and rewards. It my choice and I accept the employment risks and uncertainty associated with it.

From reading many of your posts (haven’t got enough time to read all of them), you sound like a morally responsible individual. So I would have thought you would have expressed your sadness and disappointment at the prospect of many hard working Australian maintenance workers losing their jobs. Many of whom have worked tirelessly for Qantas for many years maintaining aircrafts to ensure safety requirements are meet so Qantas’s excellent safety record is maintained. The fact is that many of theses maintenance workers are on the minimum award wage, have families with children to support that heavily depend on the income derived from this employment to pay for mortgages and other family commitments. Many of these retrenched workers will find it difficult to find another job, many will not even find another job, and many will receive small redundancy packages not even worth mentioning, that’s life.

Yes, these may well be true (I don't know about award wages or the size of redundancy payments for the affected people). And I am sure you are correct that many (if not all) of the affected people will find it difficult.

I sincerely thought your comment was inappropriate and harsh considering the circumstances these Australians are now faced with, even if it is the reality.

Thank you for expressing your opinion. My comments were not intended to be taken that way.

 

[QF WP]

NM and Sheriff, perfect replies to each other. Voltaire's comment was uppermost in my mind when I was replying as well, but thanks for the actual wording NM. Between that and some of Winston Churchill's quotes, my life is complete.

In hindsight, we can always say things better assuming we take longer over formulating our replies. Sadly, that isn't always possible nor do we sometime see the "other way" that people (mis)interpret our comments.

As NM says (and I know admin agrees), healthy discussion is a pre-requisite for a BB like this one. Would be a boring place indeed, if we all agreed (well, perhaps we do on Candy Thief Challenges) ...

 

[markis10]

LAME's are still in short supply so I think there will not be too many people out of work for long, they may have to uproot their life and move but often this can be a blessing in disguise. The door opening is sometimes hard to see when your eyes are bruised from the one that shut in your face!

 

[JohnK]

As NM says (and I know admin agrees), healthy discussion is a pre-requisite for a BB like this one. Would be a boring place indeed, if we all agreed ...

I agree with you.... I think :?

 

[Groundfeeder]

considering many people who will lose their jobs probably have a big mortgage to pay and children to feed, that's life.

I'm with Shillard and other here as (sob, sob) I was retrenched 3 times in 30 years in the mining industry and moved interstate 8 times to keep in employment.

Don't ever think you have a permanent/job for life, as our Japanese compatriots are finding out the hard way.

 

[straitman]

Having just read the comments from everyone for the first time I'm glad that NM and Sheriff are now able to agree to disagree. If you look at the comments closely you'll see that you really are saying pretty much the same thing and the difference is in the phrasing, tone and inflection of what was said.

I must however disagree with Sheriff when he says:

Many of these retrenched workers will find it difficult to find another job, many will not even find another job

.
markis10 sums it up well by saying:

LAME's are still in short supply so I think there will not be too many people out of work for long, they may have to uproot their life and move but often this can be a blessing in disguise. The door opening is sometimes hard to see when your eyes are bruised from the one that shut in your face!

I'll go so far as to say LAME's and AME's are not just in short supply they are in critically short supply and It's unfortunate that these jobs are going but I suspect that the impact will be nowhere as severe as Sheriff believes.

Just one question though. Where does the premise that

The fact is that many of theses maintenance workers are on the minimum award wage

come from :?: Is this backed by fact or scepticism :?: If this really is the case then I'm really surprised because last time I looked it certainly was not the case :!:

 

[oz_mark]

Engineer job move defended at Qantas

Interesting to see that Brand Issues were considered during the review. A couple of reports

ABC Online

Transcript of interview between Geoff Dixon and Alan Kohler


From The Australian

Steve Creedy
March 13, 2006
THE Qantas decision to keep jobs in Australia is costing the airline up to $30 million a year but chief executive Geoff Dixon has rejected suggestions that management has "wimped it".

Qantas announced on Thursday that it would close wide-body aircraft heavy maintenance facilities in Sydney, axing 340 jobs overall and moving the work to Avalon, in Victoria, and Brisbane.

High fuel prices and a global change in the way airlines do their maintenance had forced Qantas to consider sending at least 2500 jobs offshore.

But after months of saying it would be forced to make hard choices if it could not get cost cuts of 15 to 20 per cent from workers, it opted for an internal restructure that would keep the work in Australia subject to reviews next year and in 2008 to make sure the operations were meeting global benchmarks.

It will also announce a review over the next six months of narrow-body heavy maintenance in Melbourne.

Mr Dixon admitted yesterday that the decision to keep the work onshore had been a compromise and indicated that worries about the airline's brand had also been a factor.