– Assignment 2

During 2011 significant industrial relation events took place in Australia. One significant event that was widely reported in the media and according to Catanzartiti and Kane (2012) “captured the interest of the mainstream press more than any other case during 2011”, was the Qantas Airways Limited (Qantas) dispute”.

The Qantas dispute involved varying parties. These parties included Qantas employees and their representing unions, Qantas Management, the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills Jobs and Workplace Relations and Fair Work Australia

Qantas employees consisted of pilots represented by the AIPA (Australian and International Pilots Association), ground staff represented by the TWU (Transport Workers …show more content…
The pilots also conducted some minor stoppages such as not working on days off, insignificant work stoppages and a pilot declining to complete unplanned work, the completed action had essentially no effect on Qantas.

Due to industrial action being scheduled, then cancelled and the projection of further industrial action by ALAE, Qantas grounded aircraft, for a month, in October, due to safety concerns caused by maintenance bans (Creedy et al., 2011)(Brigden, 2012). As a result of this action, usage of the Fair Work Act 2009, by the federal government was being urged. Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas, announced on 29 October that the aircraft fleet would be grounded.

Qantas concluded that they had suffered a loss of $70 million, and that the protected industrial action would have a follow on effect of reduced bookings and a ‘market share’ decrease. ([2011] FWAFB 7444[7]). Qantas responded by;

On Saturday 29 October 2011 Qantas gave notice of a lock out of pilots, ramp, baggage handling and catering employees and licenced aircraft engineers to be covered by the proposed enterprise agreements. The lock out will take effect from 8pm on Monday 31 October. On making the announcement of the lockout Qantas grounded its fleet worldwide. It has indicated that the lock out will continue until the three unions abandon a number of identified claims. Qantas contend that if it