Qatar Airways - not a pretty story

[Sprucegoose]

boomy, of the two clearly there is far less respect for women in the Middle Eastern countries (save for Israel). The Asian country with the most respect for women is Philippines, a largely Catholic nation.

Is that a surprise ??

 

[RooFlyer]

I guess an odd point arises - is the literal price we pay the necessity we need to bear to ensure that the people who serve us are employed under fair, equitable and just terms and rights?

Suppose this goes to the debate in many consumer quarters: Boycott a product or service because its made/given under tawdry conditions - and then the worker is unemployed rather than harshly employed. (Results in smug moral comfort to the boycotter, more misery to the boycotted).

For me, QR have a couple of strikes against them (in spite of sometimes attractive fares) and the working conditions bit just re-inforces my antipathy aganst them.

 

[mannej]

Qatar took the World Cup off Australia. That in itself is a good enough reason to boycott QR.

 

[anat0l]

Qatar took the World Cup off Australia. That in itself is a good enough reason to boycott QR.

There was a combination of reasons at hand... besides the obvious face value of the process.

Qatar may have afforded to pay more bribes. Australia was in hell the wrong time zone. In general for football, our nation gets no respect from FIFA. All in all, more blame FIFA than they do Qatar.

 

[Sprucegoose]

Qatar took the World Cup off Australia. That in itself is a good enough reason to boycott QR.

I expect they will pick up the Winter Olympics next!

 

[drron]

Suppose this goes to the debate in many consumer quarters: Boycott a product or service because its made/given under tawdry conditions - and then the worker is unemployed rather than harshly employed. (Results in smug moral comfort to the boycotter, more misery to the boycotted).

For me, QR have a couple of strikes against them (in spite of sometimes attractive fares) and the working conditions bit just re-inforces my antipathy aganst them.

A very good point.Our neice in NYC is in charge of human rights in a very large multinational company mainly in clothing.She reports direct to the board and has a large team under her.
She brings this up in relation to child labour.Whereas some firms now will automatically cut off orders to workplaces using children her company does not.The reason being that a child may be the only member of a family working so if that source of income goes the whole family starves.
So their actions are to inform the employer that the contracts are at risk and they have 6 months to get things right.What they do in the meantime is pay for the children to have schooling for 2-4 hours per day as well as provide a decent meal.the employer is told these things are non negotiable and must continue beyond 6 months.if a contract is terminated they provide training for the whole family plus food for the following 6 months.
So just remember when you feel your moral superiority by protesting over child labour you may very well be sentencing a lot of kids to starvation,

I'm not sure how QR though could be influenced in such a way.Withdrawing you patronage in this case may very well be the proper and moral thing to do.

 

[TomVexille]

There was a combination of reasons at hand... besides the obvious face value of the process.

Qatar may have afforded to pay more bribes. Australia was in hell the wrong time zone. In general for football, our nation gets no respect from FIFA. All in all, more blame FIFA than they do Qatar.

On top of all that was the promise to use the excess seating from the stadiums after the World Cup to build stadiums in Africa.

 

[xt_20]

No argument there. ME countries are definitely on the top of the list. My point is that some Asian countries are also on the "black" list, Malaysia probably the worst.

Definitely disagree with you there. ME countries and SE Asia are totally different. While both may not be as liberal than Western countries, SE Asian countries do not treat women to the level of ME countries.

 

[boomy]

Definitely disagree with you there. ME countries and SE Asia are totally different. While both may not be as liberal than Western countries, SE Asian countries do not treat women to the level of ME countries.

I did say ME countries are on top of the list.
This is a generalisation and if we dig a bit dipper then we will find that not all ME countries are the same. For example, Jordan treats women much better then Qatar and if we add SE into the mix then Malaysia would be somewhere in between Jordan and Qatar.

 

[Rareified Air]

There is another question reading everyone's comments, have we as a society gone too far with our expectation that equality and a fair go for all should be considered the standard the world must adhere too? This in the week that the automotive industry in this country died because we were too nice to too many people.......

 

[Melburnian1]

Rareified Air, that's an interesting point. This is an aviation forum but yes, the car industry had lots of problems including how the unions mislead their members into believing that increased pay or conditions would never cost the members their jobs.

For the majority of Australians who are Catholic or other Christian, yes we do want 'minimum standards' such as respecting both sexes to apply. 'A fair go' is subjective: Saudi Arabia allegedly bans women from driving. That's contrary to the 'fair go' notion.

Returning to the OP, QR presents itself as a good corporate citizen. This alleged sub-par treatment of airline crew means QR has some explaining to do, but more importantly it should improve the working conditions and stop spying. Some may say 'fat chance' but mainland China recently (partially) reversed its longstanding 'one child' policy, so there is always hope.

 

[Trimmy001]

Nice article.

 

[Rebekkap]

There is another question reading everyone's comments, have we as a society gone too far with our expectation that equality and a fair go for all should be considered the standard the world must adhere too? This in the week that the automotive industry in this country died because we were too nice to too many people.......

I don't believe it's possible for the expectation of equality to "go too far". Nor do I see what equality or a fair go have to do with the collapse of the auto industry, in which some may argue that overly generous wages played a part, but that has nothing to do with a fair go, where the emphasis is on the word fair.

Arguments over wage levels have nothing whatsoever to do with the concept of equality and a fair go - that women shouldn't be locked in compounds and fired for spending the night with a man, or that people shouldn't have their wages frozen and stolen from them because their employer doesn't like something they did, these are basic principles that not many reasonable people would disagree with, and I can't believe any Australians, Christian or otherwise, would have a problem with.

 

[justcallmeryan]

A very good friend of mine (albeit male) is an FA for EK and enjoys his job. I have asked him before about staff treatment, work conditions and how women in particular are perceived. They (FA's) are under no illusions that work conditions are the same as a western country, and in comparison are very conservative from a moral, sexual and authority perspective. They are also told right from the beginning that there are some rules that cannot/should not be broken otherwise their visa will be revoked and they will be deported. These rules don't involve body shape or outside of work hour antics, but do generally relate to abuse of privileges and unbecoming behaviour while on the job.

Women FA's are generally treated well and looked after the same as any other staff members. Both male and female do have to adhere to the 'Emirates look' which is not a set criteria but is implied that their body shape needs to be slender in size. My mate has heard reports of people being told they are not adhering to 'the look' but he is unaware of anyone actually having their visa revoked. That's not to say it doesn't happen, but it appears to be kept quiet or doesn't happen often.

There are plenty of stories of FA's losing their jobs due to messy behaviour while overseas, but to be frank I think a lot of airlines (or other companies for that matter), ME based or not would react similarly.

As for QR, amongst the ME based FA's they are known for being ultra conservative and in general not a fun place to be....