The untidy story of a ‘blemished’ QF 737 windscreen

[thewinchester]

As usual, there's always more to a story then those lazy journos would have you know (no news, I'm looking at you).

The summary, a whole bunch of unionists using grubby and underhand tactics to make ground in a wages war with the airline - by highlighting supposed safety issues which they signed off on anyway.

The untidy story of a ‘blemished’ QF 737 windscreen
Plane Talking
April 3, 2010 – 10:46 am, by Ben Sandilands

The allegations about the Qantas 737 flown with a cracked windscreen early in February that are the centre of yet another safety controversy concerning the airline have run into a major problem with the media.

That is, a need for all black or all white reporting, all within a brief ‘tidy’ report that says ‘Qantas bad’, since ‘Qantas good’ isn’t news.

But the truth, as so far established, isn’t tidy. And it isn’t unequivocally ‘good Qantas’ or ‘bad Qantas’, or for that matter ‘good union’ or ‘bad union.’

It is in fact, an untidy mess, and no-one looks very good at all, at least at this stage.
...
Over a week ago APESMA revealed that it had written to CASA, the air safety regulator, detailing a number of claimed safety breaches by Qantas by non-member managers standing in for its members and making mistakes.

CASA in turn found the issues worthy of investigation, and apparently expects to resolve at least some of them in the near future.

However what the union didn’t draw attention to was that every morning its members peer review and approve, disapprove or recommend the rectification as required of the engineering oversight decisions made by or for Qantas in the previous 24 hours.

 

[samh004]

The summary, a whole bunch of unionists using grubby and underhand tactics to make ground in a wages war with the airline - by highlighting supposed safety issues which they signed off on anyway.

I don’t think by breaking this news they’re left in a good position as far as CASA and other regulatory bodies will feel about them. They might be able to fool the public, but if they’re signing off on things that they should clearly rectify, they’re the ones who should be getting in trouble!

They must be run by an idiot.

 

[straitman]

As usual, there's always more to a story then those lazy journos would have you know (no news, I'm looking at you).

The summary, a whole bunch of unionists using grubby and underhand tactics to make ground in a wages war with the airline - by highlighting supposed safety issues which they signed off on anyway.

However what the union didn’t draw attention to was that every morning its members peer review and approve, disapprove or recommend the rectification as required of the engineering oversight decisions made by or for Qantas in the previous 24 hours.

This last paragraph by itself is enough to make me cringe :!:

It certainly does not show the union up in a very good light.

 

[harvyk]

I am still at a loss to see how the union action of over zealous reporting to the media of every little problem is really going to help their cause.

As far as I'm concerned it's like biting the hand that feeds them, and not only are they biting back, they are then going to the kitchen and scaring off all the chefs and throwing all the food in the bin.

 

[kamchatsky]

I am still at a loss to see how the union action of over zealous reporting to the media of every little problem is really going to help their cause.

As far as I'm concerned it's like biting the hand that feeds them, and not only are they biting back, they are then going to the kitchen and scaring off all the chefs and throwing all the food in the bin.

They do this because they can. After all unless QF finds replacement engineers that are non-unionised there is not much QF can do. Would QF prepared to ground all their flights to fight against the unions?

 

[straitman]

They do this because they can. After all unless QF finds replacement engineers that are non-unionised there is not much QF can do. Would QF prepared to ground all their flights to fight against the unions?

Probably a rhetorical question but would the unions push their cause so far as to push Qantas to the brink :?:

 

[codash1099]

Probably a rhetorical question but would the unions push their cause so far as to push Qantas to the brink :?:

Check with BA and Unite on that

 

[Dee Thom]

Probably a rhetorical question but would the unions push their cause so far as to push Qantas to the brink :?:

It's not the average union bloke doing this, it's the so called "Union Reps" flexing their muscle ( flab) and trying to prove their worth as overpaid, under achievers to the "members". WPA's are still the best for the Engineers, although more up to date and with better terms for the workers, unlike "Little Johnnys" version.
It worries me that some of the checks carried out and not rectified, may cause an accident in the future. Who to blame then ?

Cheers Dee

 

[jb747]

The outer layer of all of the windscreens is non structural. It's there for the windscreen wipers to have something smooth to move against. Delamination of that layer is a nuisance, but not any sort of emergency.

 

[munitalP]

But lets face it, this journo has a habit of knowing FA about his reports anyway. He has a history of desktop reporting and has caused me to have an infraction on this site because I gave him the tule of the week award :shock:

I personally pay about as much credence to Ben Sandilands reports as I do to the average No News reporters reports...

Mr!