Background
Discuss about the Qantas Dispute Of 2011 And Its Impact.
Employee safety and satisfaction is considered to be a pivotal part for any company. Company satisfaction can be met through increase the wages or giving special facilities to the employees. In fact, it is important for the company to provide a good workplace environment. However, in course of its market orientation the Qantas Airlines of Australia had faced a series of strikes and protest from the workers and employees in 2011 (Mules and Hsie 2013). It was infamously known as the 2011 Qantas industrial dispute. The conflict had been staged between the Qantas management of Australia and the trade unions. In this context, it can be argued that enterprising bargaining was the primary cause behind this workplace dispute and the Qantas had to pay a huge loss due to the occurrence of this dispute (Seufert 2014). Hence, the purpose of this report is to put focus on the various organisational underpinnings that rendered an impetus for the conflict. The number of issues and its volume of magnanimity are going to take place in the discussion. Therefore, the report is outlined in such a manner that can able to highlight the background and external environment of the dispute. Besides this, the response of the stakeholders is also come into discussion. In this regards, a pertinent question has been asked about the way the issue had come into an end and finally the report analysed the efficiency of the solution in related to the employment relation in Australia.
The issue was started in the mid 20011 when Qantas and the trade union of Australia went into industrial bargaining. The trade union members were demanded an increase in the wage and wanted to guarantee their improvements in working condition. In this context, there were three relevant unions in terms of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA). The dispute was taking into action on 29th October, 2011 when Qantas announced a press release about lock out of the engineers, staffs and pilots (The Sydney Morning Herald 2011). In its official announcement the spokesperson of the company claimed that Qantas was unable to continue its business due to over aspiring demands of the trade unions. As a result of that all the employees started protesting against this drastic decision. In fact, the demand of the trade unions indirectly helped out the Qantas management to shut down its business instead of solving the problem (Briskin 2016). In his words, the Chief Executive of Qantas Alan Joyce deliberately condemned the trade union for their extreme demands. Nevertheless, Qantas witnessed a financial crisis because of the decision of lock out. Approximately $15 million per week on loss of revenue with a ban on the airline company staged the way for Qantas to step back (Shaw, McPhail and Ressia 2018). In this situation the Fair Work Act came into action. As the Workplace Relations Minister Chris Evans prompted to imply a ban on the company the Australian legislation took part in it and gradually withdrew the suspension over Qantas. The Court opined that the magnanimity of Qantas business stagnation left a deep impact on the Australian tourism industry and ordered to set up a discussion session through which Qantas could sort out its disputes with the trade unions.
External environment
The Qantas lock out in 2011 was considered to be an important event in the history of business dynamics in Australia. It ushered a new perception of the business activities around the country. There are some important factors which further contributed to instigate the dispute. It can be argued that the legal privileges and the governmental intervention created a complex situation that went into the side of Qantas and the demand of the trade unions remained vague and not sorted. However, the governmental intervention was not directly instigated Qantas to initiate a lock out rather the role of the government came into play after the announcement of lock out (O’Sullivan 2015). It can also be asserted that the economic dependency of Australian tourism was seemed to be an impetus for Qantas that helped the company in dealing with the Fair Work Act of 2009 (O’Neill 2018).
In the economic scenario, the tourism industry of Australia was heavily depended on Qantas Airlines. It can be asserted that suspension of the company would be developed a grave impact on the Australian economy. During that time, Australia was going to celebrate the Melbourne Cup and it was the peak season for the Australian tourism industry and due to enormous pressure of the visitors, the tourism industry did not want to lose the opportunity to get benefitted by this high time of their business (ABC News 2011). In the political spectrum, ego became a determinant factor which perturbed the situation further. The then Prime Minister of Australia Julia Gillard took it to the next level by claiming that it was a conspiracy conducted by the opposition leader Tony Abbott in order to destroy the image of Labour party. As per the statement of Liberal Party leader Tony Abbott, the government should not intervene into this dispute and the grounding decision of Qantas was unavoidable. On the contrary, PM Gillard replied that she was proud of the government intervention and stated that the opposition was going to shake the foundation of Fair Work Act (Franklin and Hannan 2011). In this context, it can be understood that the Fair Work Act was a replacement of the previous law of Work Choices formulated by the erstwhile Howard government.
However, it was true that the government interference and the economic status of Australia at that time hampered the court proceedings and ushered a new paradigm of government control of all aspects of the country. In fact, in the name of fairness into workplaces in Australia the government turned Qantas into the driving force and despite of its allegiance to the Labourers faded away the demand of the workers (Hampson et al. 2014). Furthermore, in the words of the Victorian government it was cleared that due to the government interference in Fair Work Act proceedings the dispute became intensified and in return it left a severe impact on the economy of Australia.
Stakeholders: ALAEA
In case of Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, the demand was based on job insecurity. The trade union organisation ALAEA demanded for the job protection. In this regards, the Qantas Airlines was tried to control and restrict the third party labour providers. Moreover, Qantas had followed a policy of technological improvements that would insecure the job of the existing engineers of Qantas. Hence, the ALAEA played a pivotal role to influence the policy of Qantas in order to safeguard jobs for the engineers working in Qantas (Seufert 2014).
TWU is identified as the Transport Workers Union which is dedicated to protect the interests of the labourers in the business industry. It can be argued that the dispute had been emerged as a result of the demand of TWU to increase the wage of the workers. According to the Chief Executive of Qantas, the demand of the Transport Workers Union was so drastic and rigorous that it was creating problem for the Qantas to operate its organisational management. Therefore, the Qantas authority took the decision of shutting down the business activities domestically and globally (Hamberger 2015).
In case of the Australian and International Pilots Union (AIPA) job security was considered to be the primary demand which was attached with the hike in wage. In this context, the practice of terms of conditions for giving jobs to the applicants the Qantas management failed to implement a transparent measure. It did not go with the interest of AIPA who were liable to protect the interests of the Australian pilots (Creedy 2011).
Government was also identified as an important stakeholder in this dispute. In fact, with the intervention of the government, the situation was escalated in a rapid pace and went against the interests and demands of the Trade Unions of Australia. The support given by the government helped Qantas Airlines a lot and the by utilising the moral support of the government, Qantas was able to exploit its employees. Furthermore, it can also be articulated that the grounding of Qantas was detrimental for the Australian economy according to the government. As the government opined that the lock out could damage the tourism industry of Australia intensely and the government would never entertained such malpractice (O’Neill 2018).
The dispute was so emphatic for the economic stability of Australia that it forced the Federal Minister to intervene into this. Fair Work Act of Australia played an important role in this case and tried to resolve the situation through a better outcome. The FWA addressed the matter before a Full Bench. The respective state governments, that is, the Victorian, New South Wales and the Queensland; the four respondents in terms of Qantas Airlines and the three unions and also the Federal Minister, were all the participants in the court proceeding. On behalf of the Australian government, Mike Mrdak, secretary of the Department of Infrastructure and Transport and Drew Clarke, secretary of Resources, Energy and Tourism Department were the key figures in that proceeding (Creedy 2011). With regards to the submission of each responder the FWA started an investigation. Based on the findings, the Full Bench had advocated its decision by stating that the step taken by the trade unions to protest for their demands was not right and it was damaging the aviation and tourism industry of Australia. On the part of the Qantas, the decision of lock out was also considered to be an essential factor for hampering the business activities of Australian tourism and aviation industry. In response to this, the FWA Full Bench was coming to the conclusion of terminating or suspending the grounding decision of Qantas under Section 424 (1) (d) (O’Neill 2018). As a result of the Full Bench verdict, Qantas and ALAEA were going to make a settlement. In case of the TWU and AIPA the arbitration was still on the verge of confusion which ended in April 2012 through a negotiation. The culmination of the agreement between Qantas and the three trade unions was not at all satisfying the interests of the workers and it can be ascribed that the Fair Work Act was failed to mitigate the dispute (Stewart 2013).
TWU
There are a number of outcomes emerged from the drastic decision of Fair Work Act. First of all, the Full Bench verdict disappointed the trade unions intensely and the trust and beliefs upon FWA became shattered. It can also be argued that the government intervention in the dispute made the authority more fragile and ineffective in combating crisis (Skinner and Pocock 2014).
Secondly, the verdict of FWA did not result in favour of the ALAEA. The ALAEA did not get the bargaining demands and the agreement with Qantas seemed irrelevant and replicated the previous Qantas-ALAEA agreement (The Sydney Morning Herald 2011).
Thirdly, the settlement between Qantas and TWU and AIPA was not adequate enough to resolve the dispute. In fact, the AIPA had appealed against the FWA decision and claimed that the Qantas’ lockout was not giving any advantage to the rights of the workers and FWA would take a firm step in order to prohibit such kind of tendency (Forsyth 2015).
Moreover, the Qantas dispute of 2011 encouraged other companies to walk through the same path. In case of Schweppes Australia, the company followed the same line of Qantas by claiming that it sought a lockout on the ground of shift patterns (ABC News 2011).
Conclusion
It can be argued that the dispute reflected a scenario of the employment relations in Australia. In fact, the event opened up some key concepts in terms of enterprise bargaining, role of government in industrial disputes, the effectiveness of FWA in solving industrial disputes and the role of enterprises in fulfilling the interests of the employees. In the conjecture of the employee safety, the inefficiency of the government and giving support in favour of the companies instead of the workers proved the inhospitable environment for working in Australia. However, the Gillard government appointed a review panel to analyze the operation of Fair Work Act. Therefore, it can be concluded that there can be a government intervention but it has to be neutral and should have a impartial organ to investigate the disputes. It will be beneficial for business as well as good for the economy of Australia.
References
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Creedy, S. 2011. Qantas grounds all flights over pay disputes with unions. The Australian. [online] Available at: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/aviation/qantas-grounds-all-flights/news-story/2aabe0e51902dca90771d607f2c27d23?sv=95fbfd0fd233eee09213b78759749b77 [Accessed 10 May 2018].
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Franklin, M. and Hannan, E. 2011. Prime Minister moves to end Qantas grounding. The Australian. [online] Available at: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/prime-minister-moves-to-end-qantas-grounding/news-story/d3a17456a22b7949398257e4575e7391 [Accessed 10 May 2018].
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O’Neill, S. 2018. The gods must be crazy: chronology of and issues in the Qantas industrial dispute 2011 – Parliament of Australia. [online] Aph.gov.au. Available at: https://www.aph.gov.au/About_Parliament/Parliamentary_Departments/Parliamentary_Library/pubs/BN/2011-2012/ChronQantas [Accessed 10 May 2018].
O’Sullivan, M., 2015. Mayday: The Inside Story of the Fall of Qantas. Penguin UK.
Seufert, J., 2014. Qantas and its marginal abatement cost curve in the context of late capitalism and climate change.
Shaw, A., McPhail, R. and Ressia, S., 2018. Employment Relations. Cengage AU.
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