Australia's Biggest Airline Grounds Its Entire Fleet

An anonymous reader writes "Australia's national airline QANTAS, famous for never having had a fatal crash, has been grounded effective immediately by its management. The grounding is in response to industrial action by union employees and has stranded passengers all over the world, with 108 planes grounded indefinitely. The Australian Government is seeking an urgent industrial relations hearing in a likely bid to suspend the industrial action and halt further damage to the Australian economy."

Comments

Re:This is slashdot...

[couchslug]

They aren't. Here's the newest site with more tech news than Slashdot:

tmz.com

"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[couchslug]

Those who object to non-tech stories polluting this site, speak up and don't post AC when you do it.

Enough. We have sufficient ordinary news sites and don't need that distracting bullshit here.

If it's not a relevant TECHNOLOGY or related story, post that shit somewhere else.

You don't need to post it here. We don't need it here.

"Tech or GTFO!"

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Anonymous Coward]

If it's not a relevant TECHNOLOGY or related story, post that shit somewhere else.

Unless, of course, it's an irrelevant POLITICAL story; in that case, post away.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[NaughtyNimitz]

Hear hear. I for one am not interested in some union debate down under. We've got enough of them over here in Europe.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Bookbeans2007]

Well said! Someone buy this man a beer!

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[toriver]

The word "technology" is curiously absent from the phrase "News for nerds. Stuff that matters."

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Outlander Engine]

"Tech or GTFO"

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[maguxs]

the strike and lock out INCLUDES engineers

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Anonymous Coward]

"famous for never having had a fatal crash"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qantas_fatal_accidents

I count 99 fatalities.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Hummdis]

Of course it does! It included every QANTAS employee. I feel bad for the customers, but the airline grounded for bureaucratic BS and union bickering reasons. Not because of a technology or engineering related issues. The former will always be a CNN, BBC and WSJ story, the latter means it's a /. story. Otherwise, GTFO.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Fished]

I disagree. I see several good reasons for Slashdot to post mainstream news and wish they would do more of it. First, slashdot has a unique format. Second, it has a unique community, whose comments on mainstream news I often find insightful (particularly after they're run through the gauntlet if slashdots unique moderation system.). Third, it raises attention to mainstream stories I might otherwise have missed. If you don't like it, just gointo your preferences and filter your categories appropriately.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Raenex]

It's implied by the word nerd:

"2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept."

Science and occasional math stories, sure. Union disputes in Australia? No.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[TheRaven64]

Yet the abbreviation tech is strangely present in the URL of this story, posted as it was on tech.slashdot.org, not politics.slashdot.org.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Raenex]

filter your categories appropriately

You raise some good points, but note that this was posted under the "tech" category.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[couchslug]

And when there is no more "News for Nerds", what filter will BRING IT BACK?

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[mister_playboy]

I would note the tagline "news for nerds, stuff that matters" no longer appears in the page header...

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Anonymous Coward]

it's a left-wing technology website.

they enjoy that stuff so much

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Gadget_Guy]

I count 99 fatalities.

It is funny how access to Wikipedia turns us all into rain men. We may not be able to instantly count matches dropped onto the floor, but we can quickly total up how many people died on an airline located half way around the world!

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Anonymous Coward]

If you don't want to read it, don't read it.

And quit whining, bitch.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[smithmc]

It's implied by the word nerd:

"2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept."

Science and occasional math stories, sure. Union disputes in Australia? No.

Inability or seriously reduced ability to travel to or from Australia, e.g. on business of a possibly nerdy nature? Quite possibly. The company I work for has an installation in Australia in the next couple of weeks...

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[labnet]

Hey bud.
It's News For Nerds, Stuff that matters.

I visit this site everyday, so I must be a nerd.
My wife is stuck in Sydney because of this, so to me it is 'Stuff the Matters'.

This is a grounding of the ENTIRE airline which is unprecedented, with NO notice (We only have 3 domestic carriers). Thus if you were in transit somewhere around the world (or on a codeshare flight) with QANTAS, you are now stuck.
I think this is newsworthy enough.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Anonymous Coward]

I disagree. I see several good reasons for Slashdot to post mainstream news and wish they would do more of it. First, slashdot has a unique format. Second, it has a unique community, whose comments on mainstream news I often find insightful (particularly after they're run through the gauntlet if slashdots unique moderation system.). Third, it raises attention to mainstream stories I might otherwise have missed. If you don't like it, just gointo your preferences and filter your categories appropriately.

Idiot you are missing the point you can't be specialized and generalized at the same time.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Nqdiddles]

Agreed. I would expect the comments on a Slashdot story to be more interesting and insightful than the crap I'd often read commented on mainstream Australian news sites. So even though I've heard all the details of this story elsewhere, I opened up this page specifically to see what Slashdotters had to say about it.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Fished]

hehe

See parent for an example of why Slashdot needs a "unique moderation system."

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Smurf]

If it's not a relevant TECHNOLOGY or related story, post that shit somewhere else.

You've got it wrong. This isn't a tech news site. This is News for nerds, stuff that matters.

You see mostly tech news here, because most nerds are mostly interested in technology. But most nerds are also interested in other topics, you know, "stuff that matters". Thus you frequently find articles on other topics highlighted here. That's the case now, and has always been the case in Slashdot. (And I've been here since way before I opened my account, shortly after the site opened).

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[MichaelSmith]

Also Qantas Flight 30 was very nearly lost when an oxygen tank exploded. A guy who used to work on 747s showed me how close the valve at the top of that tank came to piercing the central fuel tank of the '47. Survival in that case was pure luck and not very probable.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[toriver]

Ah, didn't check that part. Yeah, then it does not make sense unless everything that has to do with planes is considered tech.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[jo7hs2]

Hear hear! I come here for tech news and discussion. The more general news material, especially political material, finds its way onto Slashdot, the less I feel compelled to bother with a visit. Knock it off.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Raenex]

Then read the mainstream news, as this affects any potential traveler to Australia. There's nothing particular to Slashdot nerds for this story.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[mab]

Fuck off

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[adolf]

But the unique format and community of Slashdot are both here exactly because of the at least orthogonally tech-related content.

If you want a mainstream news site that looks like Slashdot and has features like Slashdot, then download Slashcode and get busy on making one.

(There's lots of non-tech related stuff that is also "Stuff that matters," but a particularly safe airline who doesn't really have any flights that don't include .au as at least one endpoint can ground their planes forever and not qualify as "stuff that matters.")

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[MeateaW]

The unions involved are: Ground staff union (baggage handlers and food preparers etc.) The airplane engineers union (fix and maintain the planes) And the airplane pilots union (fly the planes) It is not all qantas staff. Staff not part of the unions are still going to work. (I imagine they are all on the phones organizing alternative travel arrangements for everyone that is flying with them that has been grounedd) I agree, it is possibly not that relevant, but I am glad to hear it being reported outside of Australia. (we get so little quality journalism from outside I forget that news agencies around the world can actually report interesting things)

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[rtb61]

Bloody hell, slugo, don't like the story don't read it and don't comment.

Stories here are menat to be stories of any interest to geeks and nerds, that's any interest at all and, politics and unions and economic et al are of interest.

Bugger you and piss off if you think you can choose for me what will be of interest and what will not. If 'I" repeat 'I' have an interest 'I' will open up the story, check out the article and maybe comment.

You disgust me, censorship freak, you offend me, your reasoning that you can choose for me and choose for everyone else what will appear or what will not really truly does suck.

The driver is how many were interested and how many commented, nothing more or less and certainly not some tin pot god deciding for everyone else what is suitable and what is not.

Not happy the go read your shit else where, there are plenty of tech only web sites. I want a diverse spread of articles, that challenge existing thought and drive new ideas and yes unions are a hot topic because you of so limited thought, computer support staff and programmers et al can and do join unions.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[bill_mcgonigle]

Certainly an airline fleet is a massive bit of technology. That it can be grounded by a social engineering attack is something I hadn't considered previously.

How is this not news for nerds?

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Old Wolf]

How about having "never had a fatal crash since 1951" then. It's well known that aircraft safety was terrible in those days. There wasn't proper organizations like the FAA to oversee and enforce safety standards back then.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Dilaudid]

Agreed. Flamebait crap about unions and corporations might boost page views, but it is killing the site.

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[tehcyder]

Why don't you just go and start your own fucking site made up entirely of whatever stories you want to read? Most of us like a reasonable mixture of news, and not just about TECHNOLOGY Would you ban items on mathematics, physics, chemistry or biology unless they related directly to a product?

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[tehcyder]

It's implied by the word nerd:

"2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept."

Science and occasional math stories, sure. Union disputes in Australia? No.

What about politics nerds, airline nerds, union nerds, history nerds, travel nerds...?

Re:"Post Tech or GTFO!"

[Raenex]

Those non-technical and non-scientific fields have never been the focus of Slashdot.

Outsourcing

[jbwolfe]

Outsourcing- plain and simple. This strategy is in use here in the US but so far has not succeeded. Everyone spits on labor, but this is what labor can do best for its constituency- protect companies from sending work to the cheapest bidder. Can anyone say that they want budget pilots? How about another Colgan Air in Buffalo. This is where paying for experience pays off, but management focuses on cost and fails to account for the value of quality.

Re:Outsourcing

[bloodhawk]

I am all for supporting the workers, but at some point the companies involved need to make a profit, Qantas has been going backwards for years now with share price a quarter of there highs, and the demands being made here by unions would probably drive qantas to the wall and it would certainly decimate the share price, What point is there in ensuring top paying jobs if there are no jobs?

Re:Outsourcing

[walshy007]

Qantas have lost 68million on this already. There are approximately 30,000 workers under their employ, with only 3 of the 11 unions striking and demanding a one dollar an hour increase.

Assuming the _entire_ work force wanted the increase, $68m/30,000/40(hours in a week)/52(weeks in a year)=$1.09 increase per worker per hour

If the increases were going to bankrupt the company, qantas should be looking pretty bankrupt about now.

Qantas domestic is doing just fine, qantas international has been bleeding money for years because of the cheap labour overseas.. Australians just can't compete with people that are willing to work for single digit dollars per hour, the workers just wouldn't stand for it.

Re:Outsourcing

[rtb61]

In this case has management with golden parachutes been paid off to bankrupt Qantas. Whilst there was an industrial dispute, there was no actual industrial action going on. This stinks of some psychopath corporate executive plan for personal profit. Cripple a commercial airline and allow competitors a big chance to snap up market share whilst making Qantas an easy corporate takeover target.

So a competitor now buys up a crippled and cheap Qantas at a bargain price, shifts all operations offshore to maximise profits and the current criminal executives all get top salaried positions in the takeover company with big bonuses.

The ways of modern psychopathic corporations.

Re:Outsourcing

[Anonymous Coward]

Budget airlines are a result of three things:

- The tight fisted traveller always seeking a bargain
- The tight fisted traveller always expecting champagne service
- Airline suits catering to the tight fisted traveller.

Bottom line: You gets what you pays for.

Re:Outsourcing

[abhi_beckert]

Assuming the _entire_ work force wanted the increase, $68m/30,000/40(hours in a week)/52(weeks in a year)=$1.09 increase per worker per hour

If the increases were going to bankrupt the company, qantas should be looking pretty bankrupt about now.

You're spreading the $68 million over a whole year? That is only one month of losses, and the unions are threatening to continue that action on into the next year.

But worse than the money lost, flights have been cancelled. One of the most premium airlines in the world, praised by business and high income customers, cannot afford to cancel flights regularly.

Either the industrial action needs to end, or quantas needs to shut down entirely, and focus on jetstar.

Re:Outsourcing

[abhi_beckert]

In this case has management with golden parachutes been paid off to bankrupt Qantas. Whilst there was an industrial dispute, there was no actual industrial action going on

Bullshit. Strikes have cancelled 500 flights, or 88,000 seats, in the last handful of weeks, and there's no sign of the industrial action stopping.

Re:Outsourcing

[Falconhell]

The poster is quite correct, there was no industrial action occouring at the time of the lockout. Also your'e a wanker.

Re:Outsourcing

[Max Littlemore]

Bullshit. At that time of the grounding, the only industrial action taking place was pilots wearing red ties. Qantas has been going backwards because they are outsourcing maintenance to save money and they charge too much. The only difference between Qantas and Virgin is that Qantas gives you complementary snack. That cannot be worth the difference in price.

This whole story is just another one of those "Australian business people are so stupid they keep importing shonksters from over seas to drive our local industries into the ground" things. Coles and the milk price war is another fine example. If Qantas is really doing so badly they need to import budget pilots and outsource maintenance (gambling away the Qantas reputation for safety), why did Joyce get a big pay rise? Because he is really worth it, or because he's yet another greedy foreigner who doesn't give a shit what happens after he leaves?

Re:Outsourcing

[Max Littlemore]

The maintenance engineers stopped overtime bans weeks ago. The industrial action in effect when the grounding occurred was pilots wearing red ties. CASA has publicly stated there was no safety reason for the grounding.

Re:Outsourcing

[rtb61]

In fact I smell the stench of Bechtel all over this, a move to expand it's presence in Australia.

Re:Outsourcing

[tehcyder]

In this case has management with golden parachutes been paid off to bankrupt Qantas. Whilst there was an industrial dispute, there was no actual industrial action going on

Bullshit. Strikes have cancelled 500 flights, or 88,000 seats, in the last handful of weeks, and there's no sign of the industrial action stopping.

But these strikes did not ground the entire fleet worldwide. That's why this is news. Big corporations now consider beating unions more important than their customers or profits.

It's called cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[couchslug]

Not news for nerds. Now go take an ice axe to the head like your hero.

No advanced warning?

[sgt scrub]

I think the desire to make this announcement "This is in response to the damaging industrial action by three unions" was more important than keeping their customers informed and their employees happy. If someone is stranded it is because Qantas is playing politics with its customers and screwing its employees.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Sponge Bath]

...Qantas is playing politics with its customers and screwing its employees.

Quantas is trying to screw the employees. The unions are trying to screw Quantas. The results screw the customers. If the customers are smart, they will vote with their wallets to screw Quantas and the unions.

That is called a cluster fuck.

Re:No advanced warning?

[mcgrew]

I had to google to find out what "Industrial action" is. The links in TFS are incredibly vague -- what "damaging industrial action" did they ground the fleet for? According to wikipedia it could be
        Strike
        Occupation of factories
        Work-to-rule
        General strike
        Slowdown (or Go-slow)
        Overtime ban
So which one(s) was it? It looks like union busting to me.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, when I saw "damaging industrial action", I thought for second someone was sabotaging the planes.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

According to this article
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/joyce-holding-knife-to-nations-throat/story-e6frfku0-1226180382319

"AIPA's industrial action has been limited to making brief, positive in-flight announcements and wearing red ties,"

Nothing damaging...

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

The name of the company is QANTAS, not Quantas. It is an acronym for Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service

Re:No advanced warning?

[Sponge Bath]

The name of the company is QANTAS, not Quantas. It is an acronym for Queensland And Northern Territory Air Service

Derp. The more you know...

Re:No advanced warning?

[TheRaven64]

Nothing damaging!?! They were wearing red ties! Red is the colour of communists! Their passengers might have caught communism as a result of being exposed to employees wearing red ties! Think of the lawsuits!

Re:No advanced warning?

[sgt scrub]

If you call stopping outsourcing and enforcing a living wage "screwing a company", I'm all for it.

Re:No advanced warning?

[sgt scrub]

Awesome isn't it. The employees are wearing red ties so management stops all flights and tells customers the employees are performing "damaging industrial actions".

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

The union ferals had told Qantas they were going to "bake them slowly" and have made demands that, if met, would mean Qantas would be bankrupt within two years. Qantas have done the right thing, called the bluff of the treasonous parasites.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Farmer Tim]

Understandable mistake: without the U it should be pronounced like the Q in Iraq, ie "can't ass".

Re:No advanced warning?

[realityimpaired]

Rolling strike and work stoppages, at unannounced locations and times. According to QANTAS' news releases, it's costing the airline about 2 million AUD per day.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget about the previous pilots strike, where all the pilots in Australia shutdown the entire aviation industry. We have had 18 months of rolling strikes by the 3 unions who have said they want to bake Qantas slowly. I have no sympathy for these people. They just want to hold the country to ransom. Good on Qantas for taking this step.

Re:No advanced warning?

[black3d]

Except what their engineers call a "living wage" is twice the average family income.

Re:No advanced warning?

[gordo3000]

isn't there both a strike and slow down in progress by the unions? I've read figures that the dispute has cost quantus like 16 million dollars a week before this lockout.

Re:No advanced warning?

[tbird81]

How about the airline offer a price to its employees? Then how about the employees say whether that is enough - and if not, decide to work elsewhere - you know, supply and demand.

I'm not sure why everything needs to be "enforced".

Re:No advanced warning?

[Sponge Bath]

This is learned blindness. I post to an article spelling it correctly and still used Quantas. What next? Paul Hogan is not the king of Australia? The Australian national drink is not fermented vegemite?

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

If QANTAS wanted to strand me in Sydney, and give me an excuse to tell my boss as to why I'm not at work on Monday...I'll be at Bondi and thank QANTAS for giving me a few more days down under.

Oh yeah, and it's best not to piss off the people who fix the planes. I care about getting someplace safely, more than saving a few dollars and having the cheapest mechanics working on the plane.

Re:No advanced warning?

[lachlan76]

Strikes.

Re:No advanced warning?

[natd]

Or more correctly, according to what I'd always understood but never checked(!): "Queensland And Northern Territory Aerial Services"

Re:No advanced warning?

[wetpainter]

Aussie here. It is pronounced more like qwon-tuss. :)

Re:No advanced warning?

[daver00]

The median wage in Australia is roughly $65k/year. That may sound like a lot but we have a very, very high cost of living in this country. Are the engineers asking for a median wage of $120k/year? I can tell you as someone who lives with a combined income of $70k before tax, we are not well off in the slightest.

Re:No advanced warning?

[daver00]

They have been going back and forth doing exactly this for the past 6 months...

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe it was multiple strikes and possibly a slowdown

Re:No advanced warning?

[black3d]

Yes, they are - they're actually on more than an average wage of $120k at present. They're seeking an increase to $170k.

Re:No advanced warning?

[bloodhawk]

The unions have been doing rolling strikes for the last few months, The red ties had nothing to do with Qantas's actions, it was the strikes combined with demands for large pay increases and guarenteed no out sourcing. Qantas is already losing money by the bucket full on international operations, The unions are basically sending them to the wall, makes you wonder what sort of morons run the unions when anyone with half a brain can see there demands will only ensure they all lose there jobs.

Re:No advanced warning?

[daver00]

Damn, that's some serious coin. Seems everyone in this dispute is being incredibly belligerent.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

You fail to understand what tbird81 is actually asking for.

He wants to eliminate the negotiation part of it. He wants the company to offer a (probably quite low) wage, and the workers to only be able to take it or quit.

It's what existed before unions. And it's incredibly unfair to workers, since they have no negotiating power as individuals going against a large corporation.

You end up with most people barely making enough to survive, while the wealthiest 1% become unbelievably wealthy.

Re:No advanced warning?

[walshy007]

Everywhere I have seen has listed the increases at a mere 5%, where are you getting these numbers from?

Re:No advanced warning?

[Farmer Tim]

Aussie here too. I know, and it's always bugged me.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Farmer Tim]

Not blindness, just force of habit: it feels unnatural to use a Q without a U.

Paul Hogan is not the king of Australia?

Australian royalty are mostly cricketers players, though we have regional baronies consisting of AFL or NRL footballers. Hogan is the human equivalent of Foster's Lager: associated with Australia globally, but nobody here wants a bar of it due to appallingly bad taste. In fact, when his passport was seized over tax issues recently there was a huge public outcry to let him return to the US, we hate him that much.

The Australian national drink is not fermented vegemite?

Our national drink is fermented anything, and vegemite certainly fits the "anything" category...

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

The pilots union were making an announcement during each flight and wearing a tie that said 'Qantas flight, Qantas pilot'.

What they are after is that all flights must have Qantas pilots and not out-sourced pilots.

Obviously heavy action that would cost the company millions a day :)

Also the industrial action has been around international flights and not aimed at domestic flights but all flights has now been stopped as a cost estimated to be over 40 million a day (although Qantas only acknowledge $20million a day)

Re:No advanced warning?

[black3d]

5% increase per year, over 3 years. A total 15% increase up to an average wage of $170k.

http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/qantas-engineers-cancel-strike-action/story-e6frfq80-1226162996039

Re:No advanced warning?

[sgt scrub]

Has Qantas even tried to propose a deal that says, "no increase in wages and a guarantee there will be no outsourcing"? I think the answer to that question would put an end to the debate.

Re:No advanced warning?

[dudpixel]

The boss of qantas recently gave himself a $2M payrise.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/travel/qantas-boss-wins-71pc-pay-hike/story-e6frg8rf-1226131646231

He also announced major job cuts whilst at a management press conference which happened to be at a 5 star hotel. It wasn't good PR.

"Qantas employees learning that they're going to lose their jobs, live from a five-star hotel press conference from a CEO that is out of his depth and out of touch with employees, his company and his country."
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/qantas-to-announce-drastic-changes/story-e6frfq80-1226115770960

I dont work for qantas, but if I did, I wouldn't be too enthusiastic about the future of the company or my job.

Re:No advanced warning?

[dudeman500]

Qantas has no "U".

Re:No advanced warning?

[Max Littlemore]

The strikes and overtime bans were stopped weeks ago because they were effecting customers. There were no strikes or overtime bans at the time of the grounding. Greedy management is basically sending them to the wall. Makes you wonder what sort of morons appoint greedy foreign psychopaths to run large companies when anyone with half a brain can see that it's in there interest to give themselves huge pay increases and separation pay while running the companies into the ground.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Max Littlemore]

No. That stopped weeks ago. Pilots have been wearing red ties.

Re:No advanced warning?

[Anonymous Coward]

It is only $20 million/day you forgot to account for workers NOT BEING PAID for lock-down period since they are not working during that time

Re:No advanced warning?

[Shotgun]

Funny that. Lot's of right-to-work States in the US explicitly outlaw forcing a person to join a union. Works well for us.

Exactly what is a union other than a monopoly on labor anyway?

There's no good guys here

[drsmithy]

On the one hand, current (and immediately previous) QANTAS management has been woeful, and are now merely reaping what they have sown.

One the other, the employees in question are already on a pretty sweet deal, and asking for more is just raw greed.

Re:There's no good guys here

[HalfFlat]

So, don't the other domestic Australian airlines employ people belonging to these unions? Meanwhile Qantas doubles its profits, spends 10 million dollars on a re-branding exercise, and gives a 1.5 million dollar raise to its CEO. Now this current suspension is estimated to be costing them $20 million per day.

If I had to choose a side based on the available evidence, it would not be Qantas' management.

Re:There's no good guys here

[mcgrew]

Where are the moderators? Your comment should be +5.

Re:There's no good guys here

[toriver]

Don't you know the CEO is very important? The reason planes fly is that airline CEOs do magical rituals in their offices. No rituals == no flying. That is why CEOs are paid more than the people we think are necessary to the airplane's operation.

Re:There's no good guys here

[Cimexus]

Qantas employees generally already have higher pay and better conditions than equivalent positions at other domestic carriers (Virgin, Jetstar, Tiger) - and FAR more than carriers in almost any foreign country that you could name. Also, Alan Joyce, though just given a $1.5M raise, voluntarily took a $7M/year pay cut previously. So he's just regaining some of what he previously lost (not that that justifies anything, just pointing it out).

AJ is a bit of a dick, but Qantas really is between a rock and a hard place. Or more accurately, Qantas International (the domestic arm is doing fine). QF international is losing money hand over fist through no real fault of their own. The problems are:

1. Geography: Australia is a terminus when it comes to air travel. You don't travel 'through' Australia to get to anywhere else. So you don't have the advantages of being based in a hub, like places in the Middle East or Asia, which can attract substantial traffic from within their catchment area and ALSO a lot of transit traffic (people just passing through in transit to other locations). Australia is the 'end of the road' so to speak, which makes their potential market much smaller.

2. Australia has an open skies policy these days, which has allowed the likes of Singapore Airlines, Qatar, Emirates, Malaysian Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Etihad to operate Australian services. These are airlines that already have the inherent advantages of being based in hub locations (thus are not as reliant on origin-and-departure traffic as Qantas is). They are also airlines that, due to being based in locations with much lower wages than Australia, have costs in the order of HALF what Qantas has, to operate the same flights. Qantas tickets are therefore more expensive. And as a result, noone buys them - Qantas now has only 20% market share for international flights to/from Australia (and falling).

So, QF international is losing money. Their successful domestic arm has been subsidising it, but that can only continue for so long. So what's the solution? They can either start basing at least some of their core maintenance and piloting operations from a hub somewhere in Asia (Singapore, HK etc.) ... or go out of business. This is what Alan Joyce announced earlier this year as a plan to save QF International - moving some operations offshore and creating a new premium airline in Asia. The unions oppose it - they obviously don't want jobs to be lost within Australia, nor do they want their members to miss out on pay or entitlements. Fair enough, from their perspective.

But what would you have Qantas do? They have no choice - if QF International is to survive at all, they MUST significantly reduce their cost base. That would be impossible to do while keeping all existing jobs in Australia. And even more impossible to do if the unions force them to pay even more. They are competing against foreign carriers whose costs are half as much, remember. What a sad thing it would be if Qantas - the second oldest continuously operating international airline in the world - was forced to close its doors.

There really are two sides to this story - the vilification in the media of Qantas as being greedy, un-Australian etc etc. is to some extent unjustified, as they are really running out of options, and noone can force them to keep operating their international arm at a loss.

Re:There's no good guys here

[oztiks]

One word ..... Ansett

The same board of directors that ran Ansett sit on the board of Qantas. Read between the lines, cutting cost / slicing up and selling chunks of the business is an attempt for those very same directors to pocket a little extra cash!

Since when did running a business mean you can ruin lives destroy a proud Australian brand? Those parasites sitting on the board are SELLING assets and pocketing commissions in the process, look at what's happening to the frequent flyer program it's going to Jet Star, WTF?

I understand the union strike, it's well placed and frankly if you're a worker whose proud to wear the Qantas uniform and go to work each day then suddenly have his livelihood destroyed and self pride, I'd be there backing you up!

Did you see the eyes on the CEO when he made the announcement, that asswipe is truly butt hurt and so he should be. He didn't expect the unions to bitch slap him for six!

 

Re:There's no good guys here

[Anonymous Coward]

The position of the unions, of course, is that they have rights, and damn reality. Just look at what the CEO gets !

That's also the default position on slashdot.

Re:There's no good guys here

[TubeSteak]

They are also airlines that, due to being based in locations with much lower wages than Australia, have costs in the order of HALF what Qantas has, to operate the same flights. Qantas tickets are therefore more expensive. And as a result, noone buys them - Qantas now has only 20% market share for international flights to/from Australia (and falling).
...
They have no choice - if QF International is to survive at all, they MUST significantly reduce their cost base. That would be impossible to do while keeping all existing jobs in Australia.

Welcome to the globalized Race to the Bottom®

But I'm going to dispute your black and white depiction of the problem:
The only solutions to global price competition are not "offshore till you are cost competitive" or "go out of business"

What about paring back the open skies policy?
How about increasing tariffs on foreign airlines? Quotas? Regulations?
Those ideas are protectionist, but even the most ra-ra capitalist countries
have significant barriers to trade designed to protect domestic markets.

Sometimes you need to look at an industry and ask
"Is its importance to our national security so great that we would go against free trade theory and keep competition out?"

Re:There's no good guys here

[Cimexus]

Yes I was specifically ignoring the option of changing the open skies policy or returning to at least some degree of protectionism. Not because I think they are bad ideas, but because I can't realistically see them happening, that's all.

I actually agree with you 100% that the ideas you list are things we should be looking at. But my 'black and white view' wasn't considering those options because I don't think either side of government in Australia right now would have the stomach for it. And the public certainly wouldn't enjoy being subjected to 1990s airfares again - they have become addicted by the cheap air travel that has emerged in the last decade or so. But yeah, something needs to be done - protectionism may not be appropriate in all industries, but air travel is one where Australia has a distinct, and massive disadvantage that needs compensating for.

Re:There's no good guys here

[Anonymous Coward]

You're seriously defending a guy who just got a $1.5 million raise? A guy who is at the same time trying to destroy jobs? And boo hoo, he got a pay cut last year. He should get a bigger one this year, he should be out on his ass. No one deserves to be given that much money. No one. And he's asking people who actually earn their living to take pay cuts or lose their jobs. Calling this guy pond scum is an insult to pond scum.

There's a clear good guy/bad guy scenario here. The union is the good guys, management is the bad guys.

And you claim that no one can force them to operate the international arm at a loss - that's absolutely incorrect. The government can, and they can force them to keep financing that loss with the domestic service. And if it would save domestic jobs to do so, they certainly should.

It's easy enough to end the stupid "open skies" policy, then the problem will go away.

Re:There's no good guys here

[Anonymous Coward]

Cimexus, that was a very well written post and a modern truth for many things. A rational person can read this and see that management is right and that the unions are wrong. The unions would have the company drive it right into the ground so that the union never misses a paycheck, but fails to realize that they will be without a job in a short time. If the Quantus union does not like this move, then plan B is to stop all international flights and be a domestic only airline. How would they like that?

Re:There's no good guys here

[__Paul__]

Well, if I was losing money on international routes, you know what I wouldn't do? Cancel a perfectly good, popular direct route from Sydney to San Francisco and replace it with a flight to Dallas that no-one wants, and is such a long distance that the airline has to stop in Brisbane on the way back, has to leave luggage behind to reduce weight, and once had to divert to Fiji because of fog in Brisbane.

Whoever came up with this shambles of a plan should be dropped from an aircraft mid-ocean. Dropping the SF route is just ridiculous - I'd pay a premium to be able to fly in directly to SF, rather than have to deal with the shithole that is LAX.

Re:There's no good guys here

[cdrguru]

You are describing things that the Australian government could do to rescue QANTAS, not something QANTAS could do itself.

In the US such moves would be illegal and in violation of WTO requirements. In short, can't be done. I don't know if Australia has put themselves over the same barrel, but if they have then you have the answer.

The fact that other countries routinely violate WTO requirements and block imports from the US isn't really relevant. Well, it might be if anyone in the US thought they could get away with defying the WTO. But so far it is clear that the US government believes that we need the WTO and we should just keep hoping that other WTO member countries will someday soon stop violating the rules. Someday. Soon. Hopefully.

I don't see any relief coming before a big crash. Once the US has reached third-world status we won't be importing anything anymore and our currency will be worthless. China will just have to understand that the debt cannot ever be repaid and accept the Western third of the US in exchange. I wouldn't be opening a Falong Gong chapter in LA anytime soon if I were you.

Re:There's no good guys here

[sjames]

Ever notice how the most overpriced people in any operation are all management, but they never get outsourced?

Re:There's no good guys here

[syousef]

Qantas employees generally already have higher pay and better conditions than equivalent positions at other domestic carriers (Virgin, Jetstar, Tiger) - and FAR more than carriers in almost any foreign country that you could name. Also, Alan Joyce, though just given a $1.5M raise, voluntarily took a $7M/year pay cut previously. So he's just regaining some of what he previously lost (not that that justifies anything, just pointing it out).

AJ is a bit of a dick

There's an understatement. Does it not even register that he's able to afford to take a $7M/year pay cut? What must he be earning. Also to shut down the airline THE DAY AFTER getting a $1.5M pay rise....I just don't see how anyone can justify that. He should lead by example. If people must sacrifice he shouldn't be taking a pay raise that is equal to the entire salary of 20 of his lesser paid employees. Whether or not any of the union's conditions are met, the man should be sacked. He is incompetent, a hypocrite and a fool and he's single handedly managed to put QANTAS in a position from which it will not recover.

Re:There's no good guys here

[Anonymous Coward]

Other domestic airlines? All we have are a few small players Virgin and Jetstar..oh Jetstar is Qantas. This is what happens when you have a monopoly or duopoly. Workers and customers get screwed, CEO's get $1.5M pay rises.

Re:There's no good guys here

[Anonymous Coward]

So what's the solution? They can either start basing at least some of their core maintenance and piloting operations from a hub somewhere in Asia (Singapore, HK etc.) ... or go out of business.

Well there goes their unblemished record of no crashes then.

Re:There's no good guys here

[rnswebx]

I don't think Qantas can't implement any of your suggestions as they all sound like government decisions.

Re:There's no good guys here

[ChrisMaple]

No one deserves to be given that much money. No one

He's not being given it, moron. He's earning it.

If you do something nobody else can do, or you do something nobody else will do, you deserve whatever you can get for it from your voluntary customers.

Re:There's no good guys here

[ChrisMaple]

Given your explanation, the solution is to splint QUANTAS into two completely separate companies, QUANTAS (domestic) and QUAiNTernAtionalService. Let the companies run themselves as best they can, but assume that the international version is going to die.

Re:There's no good guys here

[dbIII]

The other side is Alan Joyce has been dropping a lot of profitable European routes as well. It's almost as if he's being paid to destroy Qantas by another airline, but I'd say the reality is incompetance and not really caring about the company he is supposed to be running. He's got past form on wrecking a company then leaving with a big pile of cash and no cares.

Re:There's no good guys here

[daver00]

I agree that QANTAS are stuck between a rock and a hard place, but seriously look at the evidence here. QANTAS are expensive, yes, but people chose them on their reputation as the safest airline in the world. Since QANTAS have embarked on their outsourcing operations we have witnessed a series of dramatic and damaging mishaps that have resulted in very nearly losing a couple of planes. This, I believe, is at the heart of the argument from the unions. QANTAS differentiated themselves and hence gained customers, think of them as the Apple inc. of the skies - you can't compete on a premium brand with the same shitty service as everyone else, and yet this is the strategy they have adopted.

Re:There's no good guys here

[dbIII]

US such moves would be illegal and in violation of WTO requirements

With respect, the USA doesn't give a shit about WTO requirements unless it is to their advantage. The "free trade" agreement between the USA and Australia for instance prohibits the sale of Australian beef in the USA until 2020 but cans containing US beef can be found in any Australian supermarket. It's a similar situation with wheat, sugar and steel. Of course the Australian government of the time were idiots to accept it and probably deserve most of the blame - but it's an example that shows that WTO requirements are "routinely violated" in the USA as well.

Re:There's no good guys here

[drsquare]

If they're losing money, and the wage bill is too high to compete, how the hell can they afford to pay millions of dollars to a single employee, and a manager at that?

Re:There's no good guys here

[walshy007]

During his command the share price went from $6/share to $1.50, if that isn't reason enough for the investors to ditch him I don't know what is.

Hell any joe off the street can successfully run a company into the ground like he is, why should he be compensated so much for it?

Re:There's no good guys here

[Cimexus]

Actually I quite like the SYD-DFW flights. Suits me better than via SFO or LAX (but that's just me, obviously everyone is different). Qantas is building a market for that route now, in anticipation of delivery of the 787s they have on order, which will be able to make that route without any issue. Keep in mind that the 787s are years late - they were supposed to be in the air for years before now.

But that's aside from the point - one poor route choice (in your opinion) does not a loss-making airline make. You will note that they changed from SFO to DFW before their big route restructure earlier this year - and the flights that got the cut were not flights to/from North America. North America is actually profitable for QF (not as much competition on the trans-Pacific routes) - it's the European and Asian routes that are killing them.

Having said that I wish they had swapped LAX for DFW instead of SFO for DFW. LAX is indeed a shithole. DFW and SFO are both pretty good. But some massive proportion (like 60%) of Aus-USA traffic is destined for LA or southern California, so I can't see them ever dropping LAX.

Re:There's no good guys here

[syousef]

No one deserves to be given that much money. No one

He's not being given it, moron. He's earning it.

Please tell me where I can apply for a job where I shut things down and slash and hack at my staff's pay and conditions while ruining the company's reputation and devasting customer's lives for a $1.5M pay increase? If that's how you EARN that kind of pay, just imagine what running the company competently must earn you!

Re:There's no good guys here

[Falconhell]

Wow he is fucking earning it by trashing the airline and its reputation. The man is a useless pile of shit, much like you.

Re:There's no good guys here

[Max Littlemore]

I don't think you fully read the post you replied to.

If you do something nobody else can do, or you do something nobody else will do, you deserve whatever you can get for it from your voluntary customers.

See? You can't get that job. Only AJ can. Having a job where he can increase his pay by $1.5 million is exactly what makes him deserve a job where he can give himself a $1.5 million raise. The fact that you don't understand that is exactly why you could never be CEO of a company that has enough value to be really profitable to destroy.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[stevegee58]

I thought it was an ice pick.

Interesting

[DaMattster]

I would wager that the protests beginning with Arab Spring have emboldened the 99%ers world-wide to take action against class oppression and start class warfare. Since Occupy Wall Street has gained steam, people are feeling bolder about speaking out and taking non-violent action to make their demands heard. If this means bringing the 1% to its economic knees, so be it. I am a member of the 99% and I have had it with the 1% not only telling me how to live my life economically but with their power to pass ridiculous criminal/civil laws to ensure that they stay in power. I support the 99%ers everywhere.

Re:Interesting

[inflex]

Except in this case, it's the actions of a 1%'er bringing the 99% to its knees.

The "boss" (Alan Joyce) just had his pay upped to $5m/yr yesterday... now he's grounded the fleet. Either a genius or a mad-man, maybe both.

Re:Interesting

[Richard_at_work]

Joyce had his pay upped as per his contract, the labour groups want non-contracted increases. And it would cost hundreds of millions of dollars to fulfil those demands per year.

Re:Interesting

[HalfFlat]

'Hundreds of millions'? Qantas has 33000 or so employees. Even a $5000 p.a. increase in salary to every employee wouldn't make it to the hundreds of millions. On the other hand, Qantas did just double its yearly net profits, to a total of $250 million.

Re:Interesting

[jbwolfe]

You are right sir! Regrettably, however, it will be spun otherwise by politicians and right wing media. This all began with Joyce accusing the pilots of being too expensive for the company to succeed. Ozzie courts sided with business. I tire of hearing "it has to be fair" when management speaks of pay and benefits for employees- what's fair about their compensation! Why do they get to decide their own pay and accuse labor of greed. Who do they answer to- themselves and directors (not on 99% side) and institutional investors (not on 99% side). It's stacked against us and that's what everyone is protesting about. ...rant, rant, rant... I know...

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the 99%ers were upset about the 1% of us who are physically attractive.

Re:Interesting

[Arlet]

Two moderately successful workers in New York City can be part of the 1%.

Sure, as long as 198 other workers are the 99%.

Re:Interesting

[ScentCone]

You keep saying "99%," but I don't think you're actually able to do math. Which may explain much of your perspective, actually.

Regardless, why aren't you complaining about the wildly more than 1% of the population that actually owns the large companies about which you're complaining? Why aren't you complaining about your 100% of fellow voters who are the sole source of political power in countries that actually have constitutionally governed elections?

The Arab Spring you're praising appears to be a pretty grim affair indeed. Places like Tunisia are using the changed circumstances to put medieval-minded Islamists into power. The people now running Lybia are assuring us all that Sharia Law will govern everyone's lives in that country. Yay! Is that the 99% you support everywhere? Really? Do you even know what it is you're praising?

I was particularly amused to read about the "occupy" people in NYC whose cooks/chefs are going on strike (and only served a course of peanut butter sandwiches for one meal) to protest against the crowd of people there eating their food without being sufficiently in lock-step with their undefineable agenda. Down With The Man! The Little Guy Should Have Everything! Um, Except For You, Mister, No Food For You Until You Say What We Tell You To Say!

Your 99% is every bit as stratified internally as is the larger world that they're whining about. They're enforcing "no snitch" rules in their mobs and frantically spin-managing reporters in order to pretend it's not so, but the moral hollowness of their whole rudderless rant is staring to really show through, now that most of the well-meaning, rational people have realized what silliness it all is, and have gone home.

Arab protests didn't "embolden" airline workers. Transportation industry workers are famous for striking, do it all the time, and are frequently tone-deaf, even after all these years, about how their actions are received. This isn't any more "new" than are unfocused groups of professional/slacker protesters banging drums in the street and complaining about the inadequacy of the Nanny State. It's the usual group of people, saying the usual internally-contradictory and short-sighted things, with the usual expected result of making people who actually create the jobs these idiots are "demanding" roll their eyes and shake their heads. As most people are doing.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Two moderately successful workers in New York City can be part of the 1%.

Sure, as long as 198 other workers are the 99%.

Well of course. We've all been reliably informed that anyone can become part of the 1% if they're hard-working and show some initiative.

Strange, though. It would seem to imply that even most Republicans are shiftless lazy bastards, considering their demographics.

Re:Interesting

[mcgrew]

Start class warfare??? The 1% have been waging a silent war against the 99% for decades.

After-tax income for the top 1 per cent of US households almost tripled, up 275 per cent, from 1979 to 2007, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found. For people in the middle of the economic scale, after-tax income grew by just 40 per cent. Those at the bottom experienced an 18 per cent increase.

Re:Interesting

[Toonol]

Unions, recently, are working to increase the benefits of a smaller group of employees, which means a higher unemployment rate for the remainder. What we need is the opposite. The compensation level of full-time employees is not a large problem, but unemployment is. Right now, the economy needs a little more union-busting and low-paying entry-level jobs.

Re:Interesting

[Toonol]

A $5,000 increase in salary to every employee would suck up the funds needs to hire 3,300 more employees at $50,000 salaries. Which would be better to have?

Re:Interesting

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Holy Hell. If I were in the same room with you I'd slap you upside the head.

So you're unstable enough that you're willing to assault people you don't agree with? Cute.

Quit whining and become the 1% yourself.

What you're suggesting is mathematically impossible for anymore than 1% of the population. The problem is, when the cost of health care is factored out, wages for nearly everyone else is flat. The US is about 60th in the world in upward mobility.

Also, the Washing Post says entry into the 1% is about $520,000:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/who-are-the-1-percenters/2011/10/06/gIQAn4JDQL_blog.html

And the corporate system is working to the point where pensions are taken away from everyone but executives, and those executives had pay increases of 300% over the previous decades, when everyone else is flat.

It may be an aside, but the trope found elsewhere that the non-1%ers are lazy just doesn't ring true, I think it's more like something people say to comfort themselves without having to think about it. I've known a lot of hard-working, smart people that have had significant struggles finding employment or their businesses struggle hard. I've done pretty well, but I think that's luck because these other people aren't less hard-working, nor are they dumb people. In fact, I've known a few people that had their businesses yanked out of under them because the bank wanted their money back before term. These weren't delinquent businesses either, they kept up with payments and didn't complain. They couldn't find other financing in time to save the business, so the business was liquidated.

Re:Interesting

[Toonol]

Yeah. I live in a moderately small town of 50,000. There's 500 1%'ers right here. Pretty meaningless. Redheads form a more exclusive club.

Re:Interesting

[ScentCone]

So what you're saying is that the middle class is "waging war" against poor people? That poor people remain poor because the middle class is taking their money?

Re:Interesting

[defaria]

I'm part of the 99% too. However last I checked this is a free country. While the 1% can tell you how to live your life (just like the 99% can mind you) they cannot force you. Only the government can do that. The 1%'ers do not make laws (seems you failed civics, if you ever had that class) There's nothing stopping you from becoming one of those 1%'ers 'cept... Oh yeah - you're an idiot!

Re:Interesting

[FritzTheCat1030]

I don't know. Does Quantas NEED 3,300 more employees? Wouldn't offering employees pay rates at the top of the industry attract the best employees available? After all, that's the argument the elites use to justify seven or eight figure incomes for CEOs. I mean, they HAVE to pay that much in order to attract the best candidates.

Re:Interesting

[Maxo-Texas]

What you are leaving out is that with inflation, the middle AND the bottom lost purchasing power... for three decades... and were using credit to make up the difference.

The wealthy can't make money if the middle income and lower income stop using credit.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, it's really technological advancement that has been doing that. Mostly executed by a few companies, like KUKA Germany for example, and frankly their CEO's wage is pathetic compared to the quantas guy (their wage costs are below $5 million, so unless they only pay the ceo, it pretty much has to be much less).

Wages have gone up you know, in the positions that existed in the 80s for example. And quite a bit. They also fired ~80% of their employees, which had to find new jobs at lower wages.

And if AI projects succeed that's about to happen to a hell of a lot more jobs. Of course wall street and ceo's are asking for more efficiency, but so is everybody else.

So what are you going to do ? Outlaw progress ? Start with "every google query costs jobs !" slogans ? "Github destroys households ?".

We have 7 billion people. The economy needs about 100 million (and has hired > 1 billion, slowly dropping). The real question to be answered is "what do we do with the rest". Now while the bible and morality in general has a good answer to that, we really should find them something to do.

Anyone ?

Re:Interesting

[tgd]

Here's a little fact for you. You ARE a 1%er. The people who are richer than you are not telling you how to live your life economically, they're the ones who are powering the economy that enables you to. And the only reason you're not living in shit-poor poverty working 18 hour days on a farm like people 150 years ago is because there is a literal army of near slaves working around the world.

The Occupy Wallstreet people are massive hypocrites, complaining about the weathy while wearing the clothes that were made in sweatshops filled with workers making $3 a day, sleeping in tents made in the same sweatshops, drinking their coffee brewed from beans picked by people living in crushing poverty.

Here's the cold hard fact that the dimwit protesters don't understand: The average income globally is somewhere in the order of $4000 a year. For every dollar one of those people makes more than that, there's someone making a dollar less than that, in the world. That's how averages work. Either every human being on the planet lives on $4000 a year, or some people will make more. They're just drawing the line in an arbitrary spot that keeps them "okay", nevermind the gap between the people who are making the goods they buy and the protesters themselves is FAR greater in terms of standard of living than between the protesters and the people they're protesting about.

And that is why no amount of protesting by the "middle class" will EVER impact the 1%ers. Because the people protesting are living the high life already -- and they'll learn the VERY hard way when their jeans are $250 and their iPhone costs $2000 what happens when the truely poor people decide they don't want to be poor.

Re:Interesting

[tgd]

Holy Hell. If I were in the same room with you I'd slap you upside the head.

Quit whining and become the 1% yourself. It only requires an income of $350,000. Yeah you read right. $350k is approximately where the 1% income begins. Most small business owners with 20 or so employees have a good chance of being part of the 1%. Two moderately successful workers in New York City can be part of the 1%. Shit, the parents of many of the protestors are part of the 1%.

One thing we don't need are laws that would prevent people from becoming part of the 1%.

The stupidity of his statement doesn't stop there. There's vanishingly few people in the US who aren't in the top 1% globally, and massively overconsuming goods made by taking advantage of the *real* 99% -- the three billion people who work in near slavery making those goods.

I don't know if they're a bunch of hypocrites, morons, or both. I suspect both.

Re:Interesting

[riverat1]

That's an important point. When 70% of the US economy is consumer spending how can the wealthy expect to keep raking it in if people are reduced to spending only on the bare necessities? There aren't enough people in the 1% to spend enough to keep the economy going by themselves.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

I defer to ScentCone and his response to your inane post.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

Well said. Bravo.

Re:Interesting

[riverat1]

The 1%'ers do not make laws ...

That's got to be one of the funniest things I've read on /. in a while. They may not make the laws in the strict sense but they have far more influence on lawmaking than the rest of us, that is until the rest of us get tired enough of it to make an issue of it. That may be happening now.

Re:Interesting

[realityimpaired]

Actually, looking at statistics like voter turnout, and who's got the money to lobby for changed laws in government, the 1% are the ones making the laws....

Re:Interesting

[waives]

Until we decide to stop your nice new truck, drag you out and beat you to death in the street.. keep pushing, it may get there eventually.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Bring it, motherfucker.

You people think you are revolutionaries. But the 98% know you are punks and riffraff.

While I may not be in the 1%, I will be there picking you fucks off at 300 yards.

Re:Interesting

[__Paul__]

Bullshit. It's just luck. There's plenty of people who could work the same 6am to 2am hours, get absolutely no-where and then die from exhaustion, wishing they'd spent more time enjoying their lives instead of slaving it away. They could even do exactly the same thing you're doing, but in a different place and time, and could have completely different results.

I wish you well with your business, but if you're successful, it will all be down to blind luck, being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people, and not the hours you put in.

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

My only objection to your post is the suggestion that the 99%ers are starting class warfare now.

The 1%ers have been waging class warfare for decades now. The 99%ers are waking up to that and mounting an opposition.

Re:Interesting

[Hazel Bergeron]

The richest people I know are all fairly lazy but very clever, and have mostly had fairly well-off backgrounds.

The hardest working people I know earn little more than minimum wage. It's not that they're unwilling to put in effort or to improve themselves, it's that they have that deadly mix of being too nice or too stupid.

I don't give a hoot about your effort. You deserve nothing more than the comfort every peaceful man should be able to enjoy.

Re:Interesting

[ravenshrike]

This is america, outside of the VolksRepublik of Massachusetts, DC, and Kalifornia, there's a good chance he'll have a gun. And if people are being dragged out of their vehicles, he'll be ignoring any laws about loaded guns in cars.

Re:Interesting

[ravenshrike]

Any average income would also have to factor in CoL for the various areas. Without that the average income is relatively meaningless. 50,000 USD a year will get you some pretty nice digs in the majority of the world.

Re:Interesting

[syousef]

'Hundreds of millions'?

Qantas has 33000 or so employees. Even a $5000 p.a. increase in salary to every employee wouldn't make it to the hundreds of millions. On the other hand, Qantas did just double its yearly net profits, to a total of $250 million.

33000 * $5000 = $165M. Alan Joyce should still be fired. Would rather see each employee get $45/yr than him get an extra $1.5M/year.

Alan Joyce will be remembered as the man who killed QANTAS.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm certainly not a 1%-er, and I'm also not a dimwit as your simpleton brain would like to believe. I don't buy products from sweatshops, though I bet YOU do. I think YOU'RE the fucking hypocrite. Pointing to 3rd-world countries and saying "if you're not living like THAT then shut the fuck up and accept your position and leave the 1% alone" ... that argument is wrong in SO many ways ( including the fact that the 3rd world situation is not only endorsed, but REQUIRED for the 1%-ers super profits to continue ) that I'm sure you'll dismiss as being stupid 99%-er lunatic ravings. The simple fact is that the Occupy movement has captured and channeled widespread loathing of the way the ruling class are driving the people and environment of this world into the ground for every increasing profits. Don't pretend to thinking about anyone other than yourself, and especially don't claim to be thinking about the world's poor and what would happen if they actually rose up and tried to change the status quo. You don't give a shit, and you wouldn't understand revolution if you were staring it in the face, which in some parts of the world you ARE. Idiot.

Re:Interesting

[black3d]

The only 99%ers in the Occupy Wall Street protest are the long-term homeless, and even many of them scrape into the 1% on welfare. Everyone you see wearing a "we are the 99%" t-shirt, is actually in the top 1% of wealthy in the world. They're just jealous of those even richer than them.

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

You must be one of those kooks who believes if you're not actually the most downtrodden person on the face of the earth you should cheerfully report for your daily ass raping.

The 99 refers to percentages in this particular society who in theory are owed equal representation and protection but in fact get far less than the 1%.

The rest of the world probably has complaints to make as well, but they should do so to their governments who they have a right (recognized or not) to have a voice in.

The one percent that occupy is complaining about DO have a significant role in the problems of the rest of the world as well.

Re:Interesting

[black3d]

Not at all, I'm just saying your perspective is incorrect, as shown by your first statement. Not only am I not the most downtrodden person on earth, but for every individual such as myself living comfortably in western society, there are 99 people who are more downtrodden than me. Actually, closer to 999 - my income puts me in the top 0.1% worldwide - although only the top 30% nationally.

The difference here, I suppose, is that you look at a more national picture, whereas I see myself as a citizen of the world (sure, many of the governments in the world would disagree, but that's a matter of time). On a global scale, we're doing very nicely, and while I think the corporations and government are entirely corrupt and evil at this point, I don't see much that would make my life more comfortable, while still putting in a requisite amount of effort to ensure such.

Re:Interesting

[TapeCutter]

Quit whining and become the 1% yourself.

They call it the American 'dream' because you have to be asleep to believe it. - George Carlin.

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't buy products from sweatshops, though I bet YOU do.

You must not shop in the malls. It's awfully hard to find clothing not manufactured by "sweatshops" in China, Bangladesh, or the Philippines: barely 2% of clothing sold in the US is manufactured in the US. If you really have managed to shun the sweatshops, then I applaud your commitment. Most of us haven't the time.

I agree with the rest of your argument: income disparity is fundamentally a local issue. It's fundamentally about keeping up with the Joneses and not feeling completely trampled by the dickhead next door.

Re:Interesting

[sonamchauhan]

It's 1% of the *country*, not 1% of the world, the protestors are mostly protesting against.

I say "mostly" because I did see a protestor at 'occupy wall street' with a placard stating Indian doctors in the US are raping kids and murdering patients. Maybe that guy hates some of the world's 1% who come to work in the US.

But really, 1% "powering" the economy, doesn't compute. What would the 1% do without the 99% as workers and consumers? Make executive decisions and PowerPoint presentations to each other all day? Who would pay them for that?

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

I bet at one time George was up there with the 1 percenters.

It's like Oprah telling us how hard it is to get ahead these days.

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

I look at it form a viewpoint of which governments I have standing in. I have zero standing to demand anything of the government of Nigeria. I have a Constitutionally mandated standing with the government of the United States.

If you're a citizen of the world, why are there so many places you can't go without a visa?

Re:Interesting

[ChrisMaple]

Until we decide to stop your nice new truck, drag you out and beat you to death in the street.

Spoken like a true Democrat/union member.

Re:Interesting

[ChrisMaple]

So they didn't read the terms of their loan and see that it was callable?

Re:Interesting

[ChrisMaple]

massively overconsuming goods

By what standard? The proper goal of any rational person's life is to live the best life he can. That includes working wisely and demanding that he be paid for his work, setting a good example for those around him, acquiring things as a reward for his work, and refusing to reward those who attempt to insult him and steal from him.

Consider the alternative, that he not buy from people who are poor. That's really going to help them, isn't it?

Re:Interesting

[RogerWilco]

I think the 99% is just a moniker. What the Occupy movement really seems to be about* is income and opportunity inequality and the political influence of money.

Their goals are more income equality and democracy. Those usually benefit the ones at the bottom the most, so the Occupy is a good thing for those $4000/year workers you are defending.
It's the low income people in the Western World and elsewhere who buy the products from those sweatshops, millionaires wear designer and tailor made clothing. Even if they're just black turtle necks. If the low income people have more to spend, the people in the sweatshops have more to earn.

* (I don't live in the US, so I only have a distant view of the matter)

Re:Interesting

[ChrisMaple]

The wealthy can't make money if the middle income and lower income stop using credit

Credit is only a delaying factor. If people can't pay their bills, whether now or later, the people to whom those bills are owed lose.

People without paying jobs can't pay. People without productive jobs don't produce. It is production that makes wealth possible, and pay for production that makes exchanges involving production efficient. Credit is nothing but window dressing.

Re:Interesting

[niftydude]

Alan Joyce will be remembered as the man who killed QANTAS.

Actually - that's his game plan. He has made no secret of the fact he wants to off-shore everything.
He is purposely trashing the brand so that he can transfer all the planes and other assets to setup a new airline based in asia.
He is not bluffing, IMHO qantas has made it's final flight. The only way he will restart services is if he bullies the current government into making his company exempt from Australia's industrial relations laws. (He might do that by making the usual "too big to fail, massive source of employment and income" argument that politicians these days can't get enough of). Otherwise, this is it for qantas - because Alan Joyce wants it that way.

Re:Interesting

[coredog64]

His math is actually a little bit off, but when it comes to wealth, anyone that lives in the US is in the top ~12% of the world. Meeting physiological needs takes a tiny fraction of the average US income, which makes it less likely that high Gini coefficients will actually lead to unrest. The US Gini coefficient is 40 (equivalent to the whole of the EU BTW), but the IPF is essentially 99%.

Re:Interesting

[coredog64]

Wrong. The percentage of income spent on food, housing, clothing, etc. has been declining for at least 30 years. What has happened is that US consumers have traded that decline in prices for more luxurious goods: Average house size is up ~ 50% since 1980, consumers eat more expensive foods, they eat out more often, they drive cars that are larger and fancier, etc.

Re:Interesting

[archont]

Hey,

If I'm the top 1% then I can't imagine how bad it must be for the remaining 99%. In fact I find it kind of odd, because the past year I wasn't able to pay my rent two times and had to change places (calling them apartments would be an overstatement). If I'm the top 1% then where are my 99 homeless peers?

You're not taking perspective into account.

And yes, I do realize that foreign workers are toiling away for meagre scraps so that big business elsewhere can make a buck off it. Trust me, I know that very well as I do outsourced java/python/flash myself. Out of curiosity I actually added up all the money I have actually received (unlike the money I was promised) and guess what, I make less than 4k USD a year. 3874 to be precise - but I guess according to your logic I should be thankful for the millions of people who earn even less?

I have the luxury of being able to move to any other country with high GDP and earn what amounts to considerable savings here by washing dishes abroad - probably a more pleasant job than refactoring a broken indecipherable mess left by some crackjob coder anyway - but the people who call those wealthy countries their home don't have anywhere to run.

I'm perfectly fine with earning even one dollar monthly, if I can buy a flat for ten. With all your insight you seem to be forgetting that living costs are, if for nothing else then by the forces of supply and demand alone, inevitably tied to local wages. Sure, Chinese factory workers may not be able to afford an iPhone as easily - or designer brand jeans. But they do have phones and they're certainly not walking naked.

Besides, iPhones are overhyped anyway.

And hello from eastern Europe.

Re:Interesting

[Fjandr]

From the sound of it, they already pay their employees at the top of the industry scale, not just in Australia, but worldwide. I could be wrong though, I'm neither Australian nor an airline industry worker.

Re:Interesting

[mab]

Wow, I'm not from the US but that sounded more like republican speak to me.

Re:Interesting

[Fjandr]

And that is the fault of the 99% who continue to elect those who have proven they are beholden to special interests.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

It's just luck
To paraphrase Yoda, that, is why you will never be in the 1%.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

I deserve what I earn. Not to have it taken away and given to those who didn't earn it.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

"...are owed..."

That about sums up OCW. People who think they are owed something.

Re:Interesting

[drsquare]

Yes, everyone should be part of the richest 1%, employing a few dozen people, that's a totally sensible and realistic suggestion. Or you could, you know, reconfigure the economy so everyone prospers, like a social democracy or something.

It's funny how many Americans support policies which only benefit the rich at the expense of the majority, thinking that they themselves will become part of that elite. In reality, social mobility in America is amongst the lowest in the developed world, and these people are deluded.

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

So you figure the Constitution and all that of the people, by the people and for the people is just a bunch of hooey?

Re:Interesting

[garyebickford]

And there are more people in EACH of China, India and Africa living on $1 per day or less, than the entire population of the US. In toto somewhere between 1 and 2 billion people worldwide live on $1 per day. Percentage wise, that's a huge improvement over the last 20 years, compliments of those $3 per day jobs. Walmart has brought more people into the global middle class than any other institution in history. Globalization has brought billions of people from starvation-level subsistence out of poverty. The whole thrust of institutions for the last 60 years has been to bring the world out of poverty while trying not to 'break' the first world in the process. Fortunately digital technology has been a very effective tool for improving everyone's standard of living. (that's what technological advance does - it's the only thing that improves the standard of living in a mature economy - government is at best a slight drag on standard of living.)

The World Bank's Poverty Threshold is now $1.25 per day. 42% of people in India are below that, while the US Poverty line (in 2006 $11,161 for a single person) is greater than the median income in almost every country in the world. In India the poverty line is $12 per month (urban) or $7.50 per month (rural) - that (27%) would be about 300 million people.

Also good point about the jeans. Back in the 1970s I paid $13 for a pair of Levi's. Today I pay $13 for a pair of Costco or Walmart jeans (actually better quality than some of the Levi's.) My 25 inch flat panel TV about $250 IIRC; the TV my parents bought when I was a kid cost over $300 in the 1960s. That $300 would be about $2000 now. A Fender Esquire electric guitar cost about $300 in 1956 (I heard about in on Antiques Road Show) - you can buy an equivalent Fender for under $300 today.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

Your representation can't be taken away. It can only be given away. If your representative is not representing their district, vote them. It's YOUR responsibility.Otherwise you give it away. Don't tell me it can't be done. Because it just was done last year.

Of course maybe your gripe is that "your side" lost and now, suddenly, democracy is broken.

Yeah...figured.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

What bullshit.

I have seen it first hand at least 3 times. If you are not succeeding, don't blame others, look in the mirror.

Re:Interesting

[Cyberax]

'Deserve'? How?

Nope, you earn it, by working far less than quite a lot of people on minimal wage (as evidenced by your post history). You happen to be earning far more than them, so be glad of it!

Re:Interesting

[Cyberax]

"Regardless, why aren't you complaining about the wildly more than 1% of the population that actually owns the large companies about which you're complaining?"

Because 1% owns _most_ of corporations. I have MSFT, AAPL and GOOG stock so I technically 'own' parts of the largest corporations. But that doesn't mean anything in a meaningful sense.

"Your 99% is every bit as stratified internally as is the larger world that they're whining about. They're enforcing "no snitch" rules in their mobs and frantically spin-managing reporters in order to pretend it's not so, but the moral hollowness of their whole rudderless rant is staring to really show through, now that most of the well-meaning, rational people have realized what silliness it all is, and have gone home. "

What a pile of freaking bullshit. I was at the Zuccotti park last week and talked with quite a few people there. Suffice to say, that the crowd down there is very diverse and NOBODY can 'spin-manage' it (how?). Your own words betray you, who is going to 'spin-manage' reporters in a rudderless movement?

Oh, and Tunisia has elected a moderate Islamic party which has pledged to uphold women's rights. So much for radical Islamism.

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

None of the choices seem to be listening very well. The people keep voting the bums out only to find more bums.

You are aware that protest is a right in this country, yes? You may even be aware that political speech, including protest, is part of the democratic process. Why does it chap your hide so badly? Perhaps you fancy yourself to be part of the 1 %. Perhaps you think you might be one day. Simple logic and the odds suggest otherwise.

Re:Interesting

[Cyberax]

WTF? Comparing US to the rest of the world for the purposes of internal politics is meaningless.

And anyway, let me rephrase your words:

"Hey, that pigs in the OWS are not really 99%. So let's REALLY rape them more until they are REALLY in the 99% of the world's population and the US is just another banana republic. Hooray!"

Re:Interesting

[Cyberax]

Hey, don't you 'deserve' what you get? How is it different?

Let me answer it for you: "because I DESEWVE IT!!!!!"

Re:Interesting

[curious.corn]

Nope, wrong... and sir I'm getting pretty tired of the argument: "if it weren't for the alphas whose backs you're riding on, you'd be a bum", stop it.

#ows are not hypocrites and the whole thing is not about being commie or socialist or whatever... it's about cheating. 99% is tired of 1% welding their power to bend the friggin' rules and cheat, lie and brazenly get away with it.

It's about the dream of being able to work (hard) to actually improve one's living standards, rather than lose ground and be impoverished.

It's about the shame for the amount of exploitation that 99% ends up participating to, because 1% says so and profits from massively.

Re:Interesting

[Tom]

Nonsense, all of it. I'll pick out just some common points:

a) Economy doesn't work on a "fixed average" principle. The thought that for every $ that I make above some arbitrary average (which one, arithmetic, geometric, median? why?) someone else makes a $ less is just bonkers. Apparently, there's somewhere an assumption in there that the total amount of global wages is coming out of one fixed source, i.e. the same bank account pays all wages on the globe, so whenever I take something out, there's less in it.
But the economy doesn't work that way. Economy is not the product of money storage, it is the process of money flow. The $ I make is not vanishing from anywhere, it is going to go somewhere else, i.e. I will be spending it again. Possibly on some sweatshop product. In other word, some poor working is going to get his $ exactly because I got mine first and could spend it. Yes, I realize he's going to get maybe a cent of the $ I spend. But if I hadn't had that $, he wouldn't even have gotten that cent. I didn't take a $ from him, and frankly, if I hadn't gotten the raise and had not gotten my $, do you really think some poor people somewhere else would have gotten it instead?

b) Being well-off does not disallow you to protest against the injustice you see. Having some justice does not preclude you from demanding real justice. That's a stupid argument. Basically, you could tell anyone who protests against anything today that he should up because somewhere someone else is certainly worse off.
It's a trap. It's a "shup up" strategy. Fortunately, the 99% have finally avoided that trap, which has stopped movements for decades. "Think globally, act locally" was a good principle, but not thought through. If you beat me with a stick, that is not ok just because someone somewhere is getting beaten with a bigger stick. I can still demand you stop beating me, and take action to stop you. The argument "someone else is getting beaten worse" is stupid at best.

c) Protests by the middle class are, historically speaking, a ton more effective than protests by the poor. If you look at revolutions throughout history, the ruling class was overthrown way, way more often by the middle class than by the poor. And most often when the middle class and the poor were united against the ruling class. That is when the rulers become afraid, because usually, they position the middle class as a defensive system against the poor - with arguments like yours. That they should be happy with what they have, because others have less. With the addendum that if they want to keep it, they should defend it against the poor. But when the middle class turns around and says "hey, wait. Why fight the poor? You have more than we do, we could take it and split it up between the poor and us, and a lot of people would be very happy" - that's when palaces get stormed and regimes toppled.

d) Sweatshops have a bad rep, but I dare say it is overrated. Oh, I certainly wouldn't want to work there - but a lot of the poor voluntarily do. There are many who leave their farms and go to the cities in order to work in factories. It's a miserable lot, but it beats the alternatives. And that's what so many of us forget when we compare it to our own lives. Sure it would suck to be a factory worker in China today. But China is lifting several millions of its people out of even worse poverty every year. Sweatshops are how it works. Maybe the alternative would be $250 jeans - but it would also mean more poor people, because if the wages are the same in Europe and China, you'd probably buy the jeans from some European company, and the hypothetical chinese factory worker would not end up having the same wage - he would end up having none.
Yes, our desire to buy stuff cheaply is contributing to low wages elsewhere. However, it is also contributing to there being wages for this stuff at all. And those wages would be higher if we would be paying more, yes. They would also be higher if the 1% had a yearly income of, say, 20 ti

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

I don't give a shit what they do.

But don't piss in the street, crap on cars and behave generally like animals and then try to claim some moral high ground. And it's my right to call them out for they: hypocritical losers.

And I might ask they same question of you...why is it you so hate people who have succeeded or believe that they can? Perhaps you realize that you never will.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

Deserve what I earn.

Read it slowly.

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

You chose to hang on two words of a post I made to call all of this out, NOW you claim it doesn't chap your hide?

Considering the news reports, the only people pissing in the streets and crapping on cars are sycodon's straw occupy.

The only 1%ers I actually hate are the crooks in finance that crashed the economy, then financed their bonus checks on the backs of the 99% and now act as if WE owe THEM. As for the rest, I just believe it's time for them to pay their share. Their tax rate is lower that of the people they hire. Beyond that, it's time that the government act in the best interests of all, not just the 1%.

Re:Interesting

[Maxo-Texas]

Housing us up 100% in price in the slow areas since 2000. Up 300% in the runaway areas.

In 1978 a house costs $13000. Same house today is $16000.
In 1978 that was about a years income. Now it is about 2 years income.

And that's in a slow area.

Some of what you say is true- but overall, people have lost purchasing power.

I think what you are talking about is more true for the top 20% than for the middle.

Re:Interesting

[master_p]

You are overlooking the fact that 99% of the profits go to 1% of people. If the %1 accepted less profits, then the 99% would be much richer and therefore afford the $250 jeans and the $2000 iPhone.

Re:Interesting

[__Paul__]

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, 10/10 for a nice catchphrase, minus several zillion for failiing to address any of my points. Seriously, you people have got to get away from this idiotic religion that anyone can be successful as long as they work their arse off for it. It's just not true, and it's destroying society.

Re:Interesting

[Hazel Bergeron]

I earn stuff from you by hitting you over the head and taking it from you. It is earned by a combination of my superior strength and superior cunning.

Oh, what's that, you earned protection from me? Was this the same way I earned the right to a society the way I want it?

I.e. not at all, but with the majority and the powerful always bargaining in a never-ending pragmatic struggle, with no more rhyme or reason than any other tribe of primates.

Re:Interesting

[Cyberax]

And why you earn what you deserve by working?

Why should, say, a schoolteacher be poor?

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

The economy crashed because of Toxic loans. Loans the banks were pretty much forced to make by the Feds in the name of "fairness".

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

Pathetic.

I predict you will just sit in the local pub, singing silly songs and drinking yourself to death.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

"No rhyme or reason" about sums up your post.

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

School teachers can pursue other, more lucrative careers if they so desire.

Besides, the school teachers I know make pretty damned good money.

Re:Interesting

[Cyberax]

Schoolteachers in the US are barely making the median salary, so they by definition can not be a part of 1%.

Yet without schoolteachers there won't be the USA and it's no exaggeration. So do they deserve to be 1% of the population?

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

Citation needed.

I smell troll

Re:Interesting

[sycodon]

If you were awake anytime during the last ten years you'd know about the community reinvestment act.
Google it yourself.

Re:Interesting

[sjames]

I was, and I know all about it. What does it have to do with fraudulent AAA ratings on CDOs and massive time bomb loans for McMansions?

Perhaps you should read critically instead of allowing fox news to spoon feed you. The Community Reinvestment Act doesn't say what you seem to think it does (in any of it's forms since the Carter administration).

Re:Interesting

[Falconhell]

We have a word just for people like you in Australia, we call em wankers.

Re:Interesting

[Hazel Bergeron]

Congratulations, you've just rephrased, "I know you are but what am I?" At least you've admitted to an arbitrary position - thank you for your honesty.

Re:Interesting

[mcgrew]

Very true, glad you added that.

Re:Interesting

[mcgrew]

No, I'm saying the 1% is waging war ion the 99% -- and they're winning. However, one of 1%er's battle strategies is racism. Its purpose is to keep the lower classes at each others throats so they won't notice who's really making their lives miserable.

The middle class isn't waging war against anybody -- yet. If things keep getting worse for the lower classes (both middle class and especially the impoverished classes) I fear it will get messy.

Re:Interesting

[Maxo-Texas]

Grrr.

Same house is 160,000 (not 16,000)

Re:Interesting

[T Murphy]

Your point A is missing the OP's point. OP is saying if this year's average wage worldwide was $4000 and you made $30000, that means this year there were enough people below $4000 to make up that extra $26000 you got. He's not saying the economy is a zero-sum game, he's just saying deviations from a mathematical average come out to zero-sum. He was just trying to emphasize how most of the "99%" protesters live as a 1%'er when considering the global wealth distribution.

(I don't agree with OP, although he does have some points. Regardless, please try to re-read any post you think is way off-base, as you likely are misinterpreting them. First time I read OP's post I got the same impression as you did.)

Re:Interesting

[PintoPiman]

Bullshit. It's just luck

No, it's not. False dichotomy. Success requires effort and opportunity. You guys are both right and you're both wrong.

Re:Interesting

[PintoPiman]

To paraphrase Douglas Adams, 10/10 for a nice catchphrase, minus several zillion for failiing to address any of my points. Seriously, you people have got to get away from this idiotic religion that anyone can be successful as long as they work their arse off for it. It's just not true, and it's destroying society.

Working might not be sufficient, but in the average case, it will be necessary. Most millionaires in the US weren't born into wealth. If they'd stayed in all day smoking dope on the couch, it's hard to see how they could have "lucked" into their success.

Re:Interesting

[Tom]

A game that is zero-sum over consequtive rounds, but not zero-sum in its entirety? I can't imagine how such a thing would even be possible.

No, even in the short term, the economy is not zero-sum. And there is still the flawed assumption that I'm making the additional income at the expense of those who have less than I have. Maybe I'm making my money at the expense of those who have even more?

There is still the flawed core assumption that somehow the total amount of income is sitting there in a pot, waiting to be distributed to everyone on the planet. If that were so, then deviations from the average would benefit one and be to the detriment of the other. But it isn't that way. There's no pot that is being distributed.

He was just trying to emphasize how most of the "99%" protesters live as a 1%'er when considering the global wealth distribution.

And I am questioning his core assumptions. Maybe the 99% in Europe and the US are the 10% (let's not exaggerate the population numbers of the 3rd world, they're not 99% of the world population) on the global scale. That makes the protests more valid, not less. It means that the 1% who own most of the wealth are even more ahead of the global poor than if the west had a more equal wealth distribution.

And I am questioning the insulting request to shut up and be happy just because we are comparatively well-off. Sorry, justice doesn't work that way. We don't tell the wrongly imprisoned to suck it up because a thousand years ago they would've been killed, so they should be happy to be alive, do we? An injustice is an injustice, even in the face of even greater injustices.

Fire them all...fire them

[bogaboga]

The folks at Qantas or the government should employ Reagan solution: Fire all those striking employees, then immediately advertise their positions at even lower compensation.

With the strike having the potential of affecting the Australian economy, decisive intervention is necessary. I am quite sure these positions once advertised, will get serious responses, even though the unemployment rate of Australia is at about 5%.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Anonymous Coward]

Fire all those striking employees, then immediately advertise their positions at even lower compensation.

Interesting idea except for the slight problem of being completely illegal in Australia.

Of course, it doesn't stop Qantas from simply declaring their entire Australian workforce redundant and moving most of their operations overseas. (which many argue has been the management's game plan from the beginning)

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[inflex]

It is their game plane, because it means bigger profits through lower expenses. As a traded corp that's what they have to do. Of course, I think the move was still a little over the top.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[jbwolfe]

Oh, I see. You want to scab. Go right ahead and do it. Let's all race to the bottom. You will soon have no middle class to support your egalitarian view of society with that point of view- good luck with that. I suppose you think America is doing great with the concentration of wealth at the top and the evolving plutocracy. Ever hear of the French Revolution? Some similarities in our current economic situation. Government is bought and paid for and the country is run by plutocrats. It's your country too, American or Australian, so be careful what you ask for. Twenty years down this current road and these western nations will be the shits and you and I will be offered penny jobs to clean it up.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Toonol]

Interesting idea except for the slight problem of being completely illegal in Australia.

What an immoral law.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[vadim_t]

I propose an alternative:

Fire the management, and advertise their new positions at 5% of their current wage.

After all, it's the employees who do the actual work. Most of the people on the top probably can't even competently sweep the floors, let alone fly an airplane.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Anonymous Coward]

How dare these fucking worthless employees have rights! They aren't even real people! Only big corporations are! They're non-corporate humans!

If you're not a corporation or earn less than 400k€/y, you shouldn't even be allowed to speak up! Filthy peasants! Whip them! Whip them harder!

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Farmer Tim]

The folks at Qantas or the government should employ Reagan solution: Fire all those striking employees, then immediately advertise their positions at even lower compensation.

This isn't a strike. The shutdown is on the orders of the management, who ordered planes already on the taxiway back to the terminals without any warning to passengers and just days ago advised shareholders that negotiations were continuing (though apparently they booked thousands of hotel beds in advance).

But I agree, fire those responsible and advertise their jobs at a lower rate...I think it was fairly crass of the CEO to accept a 72% pay rise under the circumstances anyway.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense. The so-called "scabs" will replace the lazy union goons and become the new middle class.

There are a lot of industrious people out of work, and can't get jobs because a bunch of lazy goons have the jobs locked up. Let the lazy goons strike, and get replaced by people with better work ethic. I predict that in short order, the replacements will be making higher salaries than the goons...because they work harder...

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Anonymous Coward]

This is the same CEO who took a $7MM pay cut a while back? His pay raise isn't even breaking even with what he used to be paid.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, that's how it works. Since everyone can do all jobs, you'll find that the janitors will soon be happy to take a $1 an hour pay raise to repair the engines on the planes. Race to the bottom, indeed.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[RogerWilco]

I suppose we should start with firing you and advertising your job at half your pay?

I'm not denying that Qantas has a problem, and the unions aren't helping to solve it. I don't think your solution is the answer though.

And usually if the unemployment rate in a country is 5% or lower, it's actually quite hard to find qualified personnel.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.pprune.org/dg-p-reporting-points/467610-merged-qantas-grounded-effective-immediately-4.html MERGED: Qantas grounded effective immediately. - Page 4 - PPRuNe Forums www.pprune.org *At 6 pm the federal government said it was making an urgent application to Fair Work Australia to order an immediate cessation of industrial action

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[garyebickford]

Ever hear of the French Revolution?

This is too far. Those people were STARVING - very nearly the entire country, not just a few. The wheat crop had failed, for several years in a row (and the french refused to plant potatoes despite pleas from the king) There was no middle class at all, the serfs could be (and were regularly) run down in the streets by the aristocracy without any repercussions - it was much more like a slave society than a modern one. In the US, the welfare system provides not just a crust of bread but cable TV (at least in some states).

The system here is not perfect but it's a darn sight better than that. In fact the average person during the 'boom' of the Roaring 20s had it worse than almost anybody in the US today, not to mention the depression (which is now seen in large part as having been kept going by the good intentions but bad policies of Roosevelt). When you have sold all your electronics, your clothes and your furniture in order to buy food, and are living in a makeshift tent down by the river because you could not pay the rent, you will still be better off than 20% to 30% of the people in the US during the Depression.

This government is not perfect but it's among the least 'bought and paid for' in history, even today. Try Indonesia 20 years ago, or Libya until recently - in both countries a single extended family owned as much as 90% of the assets. Or most any African country, or China - in China they didn't even have to buy and pay for it - the military and its friends own nearly all the big businesses.

I agree that corporations AND other institutions have been allowed to get too big, and the laws have been skewed (in the name of efficiency) to favor large corporations, large unions, large governmental agencies, all to the detriment of the smaller institutions, the states, communities, small business and people. But comparison with pre-revolutionary France is just the drugs talking.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[master_p]

It's impressive how many people from the 99% support the 1% people.

Americans view themselves not as poor people trying to get rich, but as rich people that are currently poor. That explains a lot.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[theVarangian]

The folks at Qantas or the government should employ Reagan solution...

Yeah, that was a brilliant move, fire 11,345 air traffic controllers and ban them from working in their field for life all because they decided to fight for their rights. The FAA brought in military air traffic controllers, put in overtime trying to train new ones, and it still took them close to 10 years to bring staffing to normal levels. Better yet they only managed to do that by eating crow, ignoring Reagan's order and hiring some of these guys back. It seems Reagan and his neocon geniuses hadn't counted on the fact that you don't just pull random citizens off the street, give them a 3 month course in air traffic controlling and let them loose on the world of civilian air traffic management. It takes YEARS to train an air traffic controller and there is a good reason for it. Just because conservatives practically worship Reagan doesn't mean that he never did galactically stupid things.

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with you, those taking industrial action that harms the economy should be fired.

Are you aware that the industrial action in this instance is taken by the management of Qantas?

Re:Fire them all...fire them

[jbwolfe]

Your right- the system is not that far gone, but I only stated that there were similarities- not that OWS is about to burn down Congress and Wall Street. We have an "aristocracy" of politicians beholden to lobbyists and donors and a "monarchy" of extreme wealth and power. And there are people starving in America who've sold their belongings, and those who cant pay their bills or get health care or keep their home or get an education. The current economic situation was caused by the dysfunction of the government and the manipulation by the plutocracy- yet they get bailed out by the rest of us and go on back to business as usual. Also, it's unfair to compare the standard of living with the 20's or 19th century with the destitute of today- humanity advances continually and the flushing toilets of 1900 are the iPhones of today. The standard of living inflates in the same way as currency does. The system is not perfect, but we are not Libya or Indonesia and we can and should do much better.

Suspend the industrial action?

[stevegee58]

Quantas is a private company. Why can't they do what they want with what's theirs?

Re:Suspend the industrial action?

[Anonymous Coward]

The political correctness is affecting comprehension.

"Industrial action" = strike by Qantas employees

Re:Suspend the industrial action?

[toriver]

1) A "private company" only exists as a fiat of Government: Without laws defining the rights and responsibilities of companies, the term would be meaningless.
2) Planes do not fly themselves. So they own the planes, but you do not "own" people. They are doing what they want with "theirs" by grounding the planes.
3) The third thing they have is a responsibility to their customers. And that is what is being broken hardest here.

Re:Suspend the industrial action?

[realityimpaired]

Actually, from what I've heard, grounding the entire fleet is better for the customers than the random disruptions of service that were being caused by rolling walk-outs by the union leading up to it.

Re:Suspend the industrial action?

[black3d]

Under industrial law in Australia (the Fair Work act, to be precise), the government can have an ombudsman step in and force a resolution on opposing side of an industrial action. These usually find in favour of the employer rather than the unions, as an ombudsman forcing a company into a money-losing position doesn't "solve" anything. This section of the law is very rarely used, as most industrial action is resolved between corps and unions, but it is designed simply so that a particular sector can't hold the entire economy to ransom - pretty much this is a perfect case study.

Doesn't seem too bad ....

[Anonymous Coward]

Domestic customers

If you are away from home and between flights today, Qantas will arrange accommodation, meals and transfers for you.

If you are away from home and beginning your journey today, unfortunately you will need to source your own accommodation we will reimburse you for reasonable out of pocket expenses including accommodation, transfers, meals and incidentals up to a total value of AUD 350 per person per day. A limit of AUD 250 per night for accommodation and AUD 100 for incidentals (meals and phone calls) per person per day applies.

International customers

Qantas will arrange accommodation, meals and transfers for you.

Re:Doesn't seem too bad ....

[drsmithy]

This is a standard behaviour for any delays and disruptions to QANTAS operations, regardless of whether it's industrial action or a broken down plane.

Re:Doesn't seem too bad ....

[Bert64]

Standard for pretty much any airline, and at least in Europe its a legal requirement tho not sure about other places...

fuck QANTAS

[Anonymous Coward]

I know there'll be a bunch of idiots here saying how the unions are terrible, blah blah. QANTAS grounded the fleet when there were planes on the ground ready to take off. They left people stranded in airports in transit (e.g. Singapore, which is on many of the Europe to Australia routes).

QANTAS management really fucked up.

Yes the unions are fighting a racist fight (they object to outsourcing because "Asians!"), but that doesn't excuse QANTAS's actions.

Unions, a collection of workers fighting for a better deal. Why is that a bad thing but corporations screwing workers over isn't? Unions are merely a collection of individuals, so all you fucktards who hate them, but don't hate corporations are just stupid.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Anonymous Coward]

all you fucktards who hate them, but don't hate corporations are just stupid

Who said we don't hate both? They're both big organizations that pull the strings on our politicians. What's not to hate? You don't have to be a fascist and/or a robber barron to hate the unions either. I personally think that a better solution would be an expansion of the minimum wage to include job classification, collection of MSA cost-of-living data, and setting of minimum wages based on said data. There. You just replaced the unions and maintained a potentially very progressive stand.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Toonol]

Unions, a collection of workers fighting for a better deal. Why is that a bad thing but corporations screwing workers over isn't?

Both are bad. Unions as a group of employees deciding to cooperatively strike is not a problem. Unions as mandatory guilds with special legal privileges are a huge problem, distorting the market and increasing unemployment.

Businesses do bad things too. They seek special legal protections, too. Both are wrong.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I've read over the past month or so, this has got really ugly, with intimidation, death threats, etc. I wouldn't be at all surprised to find out that they were responding to a credible threat of sabotage.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Anonymous Coward]

"but that doesn't excuse QANTAS's actions" : Dam right it does. If Qantas bows to these union ferals they will be bankrupt within 24 months. You say fuck Qantas, I say fuck these greedy, treasonous parasites that are already the highest paid in their sector and are holding the Australian people to ransom. Qantas have done absolutely the right thing and the GM has earned his payride with this move.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Fjandr]

^ Very much this.

I don't know about in Australia, but unions in 28 US states have membership dues which are mandatory for employment. The result is that 50%+1 workers can force the other 50%-1 workers to pay for political lobbying which is the direct opposite of what the latter actually support.

Both sides are wrong. Unions should not be able to prevent a person's employment simply because that person will not join them. Employers should not be forced to hire union members or require that non-union members join a union simply because 50%+1 employees decide to unionize. Employers should also not be prevented by state laws from adopting contracts with unions that specify they will only hire union members (or require membership from non-members upon hiring).

In short, at least in the US, no matter which state you're in the rules are fucked up. Some abuse unions, some are run by unions who abuse those who won't join. Nobody is willing to accept any middle ground, such as *gasp* allowing both employers and employees the option of entering into contractual agreements or not, at their discretion. No employer should be able to prevent unions, nor should unions have legal unilateral control over whether employees join them as a requirement of employment. "Free rider" arguments are bullshit. Unions bargain for themselves. If it benefits a non-union member, that's not an argument for forcing that non-union member to pay dues to the union.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Anonymous Coward]

Unions should not be able to prevent a person's employment simply because that person will not join them. Employers should not be forced to hire union members or require that non-union members join a union simply because 50%+1 employees decide to unionize. Employers should also not be prevented by state laws from adopting contracts with unions that specify they will only hire union members (or require membership from non-members upon hiring).

So how do you propose to solve this? If closed shops are allowed, then they will exist. If you have a "right to work" law, then those union contracts are not allowed.
It has to be one or the other.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Anonymous Coward]

Corporate shill much? It looks like the Qantas' PR team posts on Slashdot now.

Re:fuck QANTAS

[Fjandr]

Right now, closed shops are usually the result of state law, as are open shops. What I mean is that it should be up to the employer whether they wish to enter into an agreement with a union to become a closed shop, rather than being forced to be either closed or open as a result simply of existing as an employer in a given state.

There is no middle ground, but not because it's not possible. There's none because there is no state legislature willing to do the right thing and allow workers or employers to choose whatever manner of collective arrangement they wish to seek. There are very strict rules in both types of environment that govern what you can and can't do regarding unionization. The one thing they all (I'm not aware of any exceptions, but I'm also not an expert on the broad range of national union laws) fail to allow is the option to do either. It's all-or-nothing, and in no way does it have to be "one or the other," at least not within the context of a state.

If you mean it's either one or the other in the context of a specific employer, then yes, you're right. It was not my intent to make an argument to the contrary. I'm not sure why it might appear I was, but people may read what I wrote in a context different than what I intended. If I was unclear, I apologize.

Not relevant here

[OzPeter]

I'm an aussie and even I don't think this story deserves to be here. Combined with the prominent slashtervizing and other poor quality stories this place is slowly becoming a news ghetto (and apologies to all who live in ghettos)

Re:Not relevant here

[Hummdis]

Well said!

Re:Not relevant here

[pz]

Hear, hear!

Re:Not relevant here

[RogerWilco]

I'm an aussie and even I don't think this story deserves to be here. Combined with the prominent slashtervizing and other poor quality stories this place is slowly becoming a news ghetto (and apologies to all who live in ghettos)

I'm not from down under, but I do agree that this is not a Slashdot story.
Although the comments are entertaining.

Re:Not relevant here

[master_p]

Social issues is the hottest thing to discuss nowadays. If the class war is won by the elite, you can kiss goodbye to new and interesting technology, let alone open technology to discuss in this site...

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[aristotle-dude]

Smash the capitalist state! Expropriate the bourgeoisie! Forward to socialism!!!!!!! READ TROTSKY!!!!

Capitalism provides you with what you wear and eat. Capitalism provides you with the internet for you to make a fool of yourself on. Capitalism is not evil, greed and corrupt is and both were rampant among the party leadership in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union proved that state socialism does not work. If you want to redistribute your wealth, do so by your own choice. It's called "charity".

Socialism is about slavery and coercion rather than freedom and good will.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[sycodon]

Someone should take an ice ax to his head. Sooner the better.

unions are...

[Anonymous Coward]

scum... filthy vermin who prey on the weak, use extortion for graft and payoffs, and cause misery in all industries..

Re:unions are...

[jbwolfe]

It is so tragically unfortunate that this point of view continues. (Granted from an AC). Unions have flaws but their contributions throughout history far outweigh the graft and corruption. A little history lesson is in order. Spend a few minutes goggling for labor's positive contributions before spouting elitist crap.

Re:unions are...

[Fjandr]

Replace "unions" with "businesses," and both the GP and your comment hold the exact same merit read one way as they do read the other*. Unions are no more or less evil than businesses. That is to say, there are evil people inside many unions/businesses working for their own enrichment, and there are many workers/investors under them who are relatively blameless. There are also many unions/businesses that have provided extraordinary benefits to society in general. They both have flaws, and it is those flaws that should be addressed rather than scrapping anything wholesale. The benefits of each do not, in any way, excuse or legitimize their flaws. The flaws should be treated aggressively, and given no excuse for continuing, even while their other actions may be praised at the same time.

*That is not to say the GP's comment has the same merit when compared to your comment, but is directed more at the people who would take the same sort of stance as the GP when speaking of private industry.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[Anonymous Coward]

The thing is known as "ice pick" in Europe and "ice axe" in America. A mountaineer's tool, not a bartender's one.

FYI:US Labor law...

[jbwolfe]

...prevents this type of wildcat strike. Airlines are governed under the RLA (Railway Labor Act) which makes wildcatting illegal. The parties must negotiate in good faith before being released to self-help. This is why consumers (travelers) get a 30 day heads-up before a shutdown, and why contract negotiations take 4 to 5 years. It's also why airlines will drag out the process doing only just enough to please the NLRB, resulting in lengthy and drawn out process. Management plays games too.

Re:FYI:US Labor law...

[LordNacho]

Well come on now, it's a negotiation. Like trading a house or a car, one guy wants a high price, the other wants a low price. People play the games they can (oh, there's a scratch, you'll save money bc the insulation is better, etc).

Re:FYI:US Labor law...

[drsmithy]

...prevents this type of wildcat strike. Airlines are governed under the RLA (Railway Labor Act) which makes wildcatting illegal. The parties must negotiate in good faith before being released to self-help.

Just a point that "negotiations" on this issue have been ongoing for a year, if not longer, and there have been several previous strikes (all with the appropriate notice periods).

This is an apparently spontaneous action by QANTAS _management_. The Unions have been quite responsible about their actions.

Re:FYI:US Labor law...

[Nidi62]

Management plays games too.

Not as bad as the games the unions try to play in the airline industry. Forcing their way into people's houses, blocking them into their driveways. Claiming "interference" when the airline publicizes the vote date to their employees after the union gets the rules changed to favor them.

Re:FYI:US Labor law...

[jbwolfe]

Precisely my point. Ozzie airline labor has a tool that we don't have in America. Management here uses the RLA to draw out negotiations over a longer period without the threat of strike. Why pay now when they can pay much later or not at all with no perceivable cost to them. Labor is commonly portrayed as greedy and management as the victim. I would hope that laypeople keep an open mind and see management tactics for what they are- stall, shift blame and deceive. See my previous posts on this and other topics for a sense of my mindset.

Re:FYI:US Labor law...

[jbwolfe]

Yea right, those evil union people. Management would never tell the employees during a bankruptcy that if they take bigger pay cuts, they can keep their pensions. And then promptly renege by terminating the pensions after acquiring the concessions. Watch Mr. Sprayregen say so himself: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/retirement/ Who needs to punch you in the nose with power like that.

Re:FYI:US Labor law...

[Anonymous Coward]

"..prevents this type of wildcat strike."

This isn't a strike. It's Qantas management doing a lockout. I repeat, there is no strike. Various employee unions have been doing lowish impact strikes over the last few weeks (typically doesn't cause more than an hours inconvenience to travellers, and it is announced days in advance.

The reason the Qantas planes aren't flying is because Qantas management grounded all of them in a dick move to get the government involved. They gave the government a couple of hours notice, and didn't bother telling the public anything until the planes were grounded. Qantas hadn't even asked the government to intervene in the ongoing dispute. They simply grounded all planes and forced the government to intervene.

This will do serious long term damage to the plan, and I note that they waited till just after the AGM before doing this. Allowing them another year at the gravy train before they are forced out. I think Qantas International is effectively dead at this point. Even when they restart flying, it's only a matter of time. I can only imagine they're hoping the government will try to buy the unprofitable international arm.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[JustOK]

ice axe to the head from orbit.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[Anonymous Coward]

Western Europe social democracies have shown that the right amount of socialism works and works very well. And socialism is not communism, but what would an american hilly billy know about that eh ?

Re:This is slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't do it--it's a Goatse.

Not a Slashdot Story

[gordguide]

" ... Mistakes are often the stepping stones to utter failure. ..."

That was the Slashdot 'Quote of the day' displayed when I read this topic (and set out to grumble, which is what this comment is).

I actually don't really agree with the sentiment expressed ... mistakes are key to learning, and often lead us where our tunnel vision won't let us go. But you can't argue that all mistakes have some saintly outcome; some are just warnings that you should stop now and abandon your course. Maybe the random /. quote generator isn't so random.

On that note ...

Re:Not a Slashdot Story

[gordguide]

WTF; rest of my post disappeared.

Should Read:

On That Note ...

An airline was shut down by executive order over a labour (as they spell it in Australia) dispute.

This is not a Slashdot Story. Stop approving these or "utter failure" looms ominously.

wtf?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is this tech news? /delete

Re:wtf?

[toriver]

It's not. Does it need to be?

Universal news

[Anonymous Coward]

There are only a handful of news stories, so consequently there are only a few tech news stories.

Disasters - Disaster wrecks hard drive factory
Sex - Teachers and pupils hookup on facebook.
Commerical gain - We're mining bitcoins!
Commerical loss - Bitcoin collapses!
Political gains - e-voting rigged
Murder - Developer goes postal.
War - Drones hacked
Political rebellion - Twitter causes revolution

Qantas never crashed... until now.

[tepples]

Because Qantas jets have never crashed, as the 1988 film Rain Man points out, and the airline hasn't had a fatality in six decades.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[Richard_at_work]

Go google for the Qantas 747 that ran off the end of a runway and had to have it's entire nose replaced by Boeing (so Qantas could continue to say the had never lost an aircraft due to a crash). That little incident cost Qantas more than a replacement aircraft would have.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[jbwolfe]

Not fatalities, true. However, there have been mishaps: http://aviation-safety.net/database/operator/airline.php?var=4842

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[nedlohs]

They have crashed. After all 1988 is 23 years ago and unsurprisingly a few thing have changed in the since then.

You may also be surprised to hear that contrary to all the other 1988 (and prior) fictional films you are taking as documentaries for current times there's no Berlin Wall anymore. There has also been some other minor events you have missed out on, something on 9/11/11. A few wars. A minor economic glitch. A black President. And so on.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[microbox]

Oh big mishap!

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[Cimexus]

More accurately, they have never had a fatality in the jet aircraft age. They did have a few fatal accidents in the early days and also lost some planes due to being shot down during WW2.

But yes, they have one of the best safety records and most respected (and highest paid) pilots in the (civil aviation) world.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[Electricity Likes Me]

Qantas has never had a fatal jet airliner accident. Their last plane crash was in 1951, from a propeller powered plane.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[rocketPack]

What happened on 9/11/2011?

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[Anonymous Coward]

So what was it that happened on 9/11/11? Something really newsworthy? Or did you mean 9/11/01 - or 2001-09-11.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[nedlohs]

I'm sure I made a typo, then again I'm sure you can find something that happened last month too.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[petermgreen]

Do you have a link for that? my google searches don't seem to be turning up anything relavent.

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[lazybeam]

That's still 11 days away!

(Since this is a non-US story, one must assume that dates are in a sane format)

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[Richard_at_work]

Sure.

http://www.avweb.com/news/news/184281-1.html

Re:Qantas never crashed... until now.

[petermgreen]

That article doesn't say anything about quantas pushing ahead with an uneconomic repair for prestige reasons.

...no different from employers

[tepples]

unions are... scum... filthy vermin who prey on the weak

Let me guess: They're little better or worse than the monopsonistic employers that cause people to start unions in the first place.

Re:...no different from employers

[Toonol]

Depends on the union, and depends on the employer. There are valid places and times for unions. Bringing more benefits to employees that are already well-paid with significantly above average benefits is really not one of them.

This isn't 'Grapes of Wrath'. These aren't workers enslaved to the company store, living in company barracks, fighting for basic human rights. They're well-off workers trying to push their benefits further above the market rate.

How it should be

[Anonymous Coward]

The directors of the company are working for the shareholders. Just to be clear, the shareholders have invested in Qantas to see a return on their money. If moving jobs to Asia increases profits and that is what the share holders are after then let it happen.

Just because there are some lazy workers in the unions that think that they can keep getting more money for what can be done cheaper overseas, doesn't mean that they should. If your job is under threat, get educated and trained! Demanding more money because you've been doing the same job for 20+ years doesn't fly. This is a decisive action that will set the airline on the path to make money free of the union boys clubs.

Ship the jobs overseas and be free of the silly labour laws in Oz. If you were running a business that was being extorted what would you do? I think Joyce had to break the downward spiral and he did. Good work and well deserving of the pay rise.

If this offends people, then talk to the shareholders about their greed and unethical investment strategy. Oh, that's right, it's capitalism, thanks for that US.

Re:How it should be

[cyber-vandal]

I hope it happens to you and then you'll see exactly how easy and cheap it is to completely change your career path.

Re:How it should be

[toriver]

Does that also include the top-paid jobs? After all, you can easily save a lot by replacing the million-dollar-salary receiving non-pilot with some beggar from Bangladesh, it's not like he's needed to transport passengers...

I am sure Australians will flock to an airline just pretending to be Australian. If they want to see the consequences of running airlines too cheaply, look to Africa.

Re:How it should be

[Kjella]

Except most companies are absolutely bluffing in that they'd like to fire all their staff and hire people at half the rate, with no experience with their products and services, systems, customers, networks or anything. One by one everyone is expendable, but all together is corporate suicide. Yes, the goal of a company is to maximize profits which means a company is never happy with paying its workers and always want to pay less. And whether you like it or not, you are almost always more dependent on the company than the company is on you. The threat of losing your whole income is much bigger than losing your work is to them. Often they know the job market sucks or they know there's very little other work for you in this town and you'd have to rip up your whole friends and family and relocate to get another job. Or they know you like your job and colleagues so well you will stay even if you don't get a raise.

A lot of the union shops that I know are like cornerstones in the local community. The unions are the only reason why it's possible to work in one place so long and with so little competition. Good unions aren't trying to kill the company, but they damn well know what the executives are making and how much Hollywood accounting is going on when the company claims there's no money for raises. Very often their claims are a bunch of bovine manure and the reality is they're just looking to pad the bottom line at the expense of the workers. The prices in the market would be the same, the only difference is they'd turn a bigger profit. The giants are laughing at all the ants thinking they are playing the game, in the end they still win. I'm not unionized myself but I know many of the benefits I get have been won by unions.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[aristotle-dude]

Western Europe social democracies have shown that the right amount of socialism works and works very well. And socialism is not communism, but what would an american hilly billy know about that eh ?

Wrong. Western European countries are not socialist. They practice a for of mixed market economics and even Canada and the US do not have pure capitalism. The military industrial complex is a perfect example of the US having a mixed economy. True capitalism cannot exist because it will destroy itself without some regulation . The Soviet Union was also known and USSR (Union of Socialist Soviet Republics). Every single so-called "communist" country called themselves "socialist". That is state socialism and the west were the ones that perpetuated the wrong headed label of communism.

If you want communism, go to a commune. The early church practiced communism. Communism is totally different from socialism because communism requires you to willingly surrender your worldly goods to the community which you are free to join or not join. Communism is about the welfare of the community rather that the state. It only works on a small scale like a village. Stop confusing socialism with communism and confusing a regulated capitalism with socialism.

Who cares if this isn't tech news?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't come to /. for the news, I come for the comments, the best of which are typically well-expressed, insightful, and more helpful than TFA quite often.

I'm not saying I mind if just whatever is posted, but this is one of the few news sites I can visit and participate in interesting and enlightening discourse... so I honestly don't care.

Re:Who cares if this isn't tech news?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry but even as someone who works in the Australian Aviation industry, who knows the details of what's going on and finds this news interesting, I still don't come to Slashdot for news like this. Whoever does is the reason we see this pollution on Slashdot, Slashdot shouldn't aim to be Digg.

News for Nerds; Stuff that Matters. Not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Noticed that tag line is gone. Why? Because now it's just slashvertisments and random crap from the shitty editors. Goodbye Slashdot. I miss you.

Re:This is slashdot...

[mcgrew]

If you don't want to read about it, don't click the link. Simple. It may not be "news for nerds" but it's certainly "stuff that matters". Yeah, I could discuss the subject with the idiots on Yahoo News' messageboards, but I prefer conversing with intelligent people once in a while. If I want to talk politics with 2 digit IQ folks I'll go to the tavern.

Rather than bitching about what's posted, why not go to the firehose and vote?

Sheesh.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[FooAtWFU]

Regrettably, Western Europe social democracies have shown that the right amount of socialism is definitely less than they've been employing for the last while. It has left them with no money (a surmountable problem, though it means cutbacks), a good sense of citizen entitlement (which means everyone's upset at the cutbacks), and very labor-friendly policies (which leave employers less willing to hire, so if you're a young person looking for a job you're completely and totally screwed right now instead of just maybe-screwed like in the US: maybe-screwed is the European normal). Europe's had multiple riots about this stuff, not these piddly little mostly-peaceful "occupy" demonstrations.

Now, mind you, I like the idea of helping out your fellow man, I just don't think the policy ends up working out all that well.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[lucm]

> The Soviet Union proved that state socialism does not work. If you want to redistribute your wealth, do so by your own choice. It's called "charity".

Charity does not work because it is not sustainable. There are many other ways to redistribute your wealth, such as funding schools or medical research, which are not charity and are more likely to have a long-term positive effect.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[Anonymous Coward]

Smash the capitalist state! Expropriate the bourgeoisie! Forward to socialism!!!!!!! READ TROTSKY!!!!

Capitalism provides you with what you wear and eat.

And it does a bad job at that

Capitalism provides you with the internet for you to make a fool of yourself on.

I'm quite certain that the internet would also have developed without capitalism if only the technology is there.

Capitalism is not evil, greed and corrupt is and both were rampant among the party leadership in the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union proved that state socialism does not work.

Real socialist usually call the Soviet Union (and the other countries of the former east block) state capitalist, because the country was run like one big company and most people had to make a living selling themselves into wage labour. Even if you insist to call the Soviet Union state socialist that doesn't mean that a liberal socialism can not work. Greed, on the other hand thrives in capitalism.

If you want to redistribute your wealth, do so by your own choice. It's called "charity".

Charity is a nice way to calm the consciousness, but in the end it is humiliating for those at the receiving side (if they have no other way of sustaining their life - I'm not talking about the charity to help victims of natural disasters). Better it is to change the society to make it possible for everyone to live a life in dignity.

Socialism is about slavery and coercion rather than freedom and good will.

This is Capitalism, in capitalism you have to sell yourself into wage labour, in capitalism most people don't have the economic freedom to choose their life freely. And talk about good will next time someone gets fired to increase the profits of the stock holders.

Re:This is slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

Certain parts of the Slashdot community LOVE to bash unions and complain about how bad they are and how all its members should the shot, quartered or otherwise removed from this world. They love to rant how everything that doesn't make slaves out of people is bad for "teh Free Market" (tm). Sometimes /. just posts stories for the sake of the comments.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want communism, go to a commune. The early church practiced communism. Communism is totally different from socialism because communism requires you to willingly surrender your worldly goods to the community which you are free to join or not join.

I'm afraid you're mixing up a few things - living in a commune and communism are only loosely related. In a communist society nobody would force you to give up your "worldly" goods as long as they are not used to exploit others.

A good readings on all these topics related to capitalism, socialism, etc ... can be found here

Strange term for a strike

[damn_registrars]

The summary is calling it "Industrial action by union employees". Most news outlets are just calling it a "strike". The needlessly long and obtuse description used here on the front page could be read to mean intentional equipment sabotage instead...

Re:Strange term for a strike

[pz]

In other English-speaking countries "industrial action" is what people in the US call a "strike". See Wikipedia, the first hit for searching for "industrial action" (with quotes) on Google.

Re:Strange term for a strike

[damn_registrars]

In other English-speaking countries "industrial action" is what people in the US call a "strike"

I did not know that. That is interesting to see that in countries where employees still can strike - every year in the US more workers lose their right to strike - a longer term is used to describe the action that is called strike in the US. I guess that means the term and the action are simultaneously going away then.

Re:Strange term for a strike

[pipedwho]

The summary is calling it "Industrial action by union employees". Most news outlets are just calling it a "strike". The needlessly long and obtuse description used here on the front page could be read to mean intentional equipment sabotage instead...

And funnily enough, in this case it's neither. As the sibling posters have indicated, industrial action is just another term for what is commonly referred to as a 'strike'. However, both generally refer to action taken by or on behalf of the employees and/or unions.

Qantas management have decided to lock out the employees and ground the airline. This is like a backwards 'strike' - and is called a 'lockout'.

Re:Strange term for a strike

[Anonymous Coward]

I would better call it, a Reagan solution for my problem.

Re:Strange term for a strike

[jamesh]

The summary is calling it "Industrial action by union employees". Most news outlets are just calling it a "strike". The needlessly long and obtuse description used here on the front page could be read to mean intentional equipment sabotage instead...

For some reason it seems that the word "strike" has become unpopular here in Australia, and the broader term "industrial action" has replaced it, or at least that's been my observation.

Re:Strange term for a strike

[Anonymous Coward]

It's NOT a strike. The planes were grounded due to a lockout by management. This is precisely the opposite of a strike.

Re:Strange term for a strike

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually the industrial action was taken by the employer in this case - grounding and employee lock-out

Are you new here?

[damn_registrars]

...and political strikes are tech news how?

Yes they are, because it gives slashdot editors and readers another chance to talk about how their favorite presidential candidate or political movement would handle this better than anyone else, anywhere, ever.

Though as others have pointed out, if you don't like it, don't read it. Nobody is forcing you to click on the link. You could submit something else to read or just not read slashdot at all.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[slashbart]

Looking at the youth unemployment figures for the USA (17.6%) and that of for instance the Netherlands (6.6%), you seem to be mistaken.
http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=youth+unemployment+USA+vs+Netherlands

Fatal JET crash

[Registered Coward v2]

QANTAS has at least 12 fatal no-jet a/c accidents.

Re:Fatal JET crash

[Anonymous Coward]

fatal no-jet air-conditioning accidents! my word i know some people can get a bit precious about the temperature.... but, wow, that seems extreme.

Some things have changed. Others have not.

[tepples]

After all 1988 is 23 years ago and unsurprisingly a few thing have changed in the since then.

But can any event involving Qantas over the past two and a half decades be classified as a "crash" or a "death"?

Re:Some things have changed. Others have not.

[realityimpaired]

A 747 overshot a runway in 1999 due to hydroplaning. That can be considered a "crash" by some standards, but it wasn't a flight into terrain situation, and nobody was injured. Other airlines have lost planes and had fatalities in similar situations, which is why you could consider it a crash, though in large part it depends on the airport: that was in Bangkok, which has a large overshot area. A more recent incident of losing a plane, for example, was when Air France lost an A340 in 2005 in Toronto, Canada, in a very similar incident, because Toronto has a very short overshot area, followed by a ravine. Nobody was hurt in the Air France incident either, but because the plane fell into the ravine and caught fire, it was lost.

Actually, the only injuries Quantas has had since 1988 were caused by an autopilot failure in October 2008, which caused the plane to suddenly descend twice (losing about 1000 feet altitude total), in which 13 people were injured. The plane was still able to land safely, and had minor damage.

http://aviation-safety.net/database/operator/airline.php?var=4842

Re:Some things have changed. Others have not.

[nedlohs]

Running of a runway is a crash. No there have been no deaths, I didn't take issue with that half of the claim. Yes none of their planes has ever fallen out of the sky and if you had to be in a plane crash that'd be the one you'd want to be in.

Re:Some things have changed. Others have not.

[MichaelSmith]

Its mainly because Australia is a pretty safe place to fly. Traffic density is low. The air is dry. Ice on the ground is almost unknown. Civil aviation bureaucrats are justifiably psycho about safety.

Found this joke about why QANTAS jets do not crash

[Registered Coward v2]

Apparently, after every flight, Qantas pilots fill out a form, called a ‘gripe sheet’, which tells mechanics about problems with the aircraft. The mechanics correct the problems; document their repairs on the form, and then pilots review the gripe sheets before the next flight. Never let it be said that ground crews lack a sense of humour. Here are some actual maintenance complaints submitted by Qantas’ Pilots and the solutions recorded by maintenance engineers.

Pilots: Left inside main tire almost needs replacement.

Engineers: Almost replaced left inside main tire.

Pilots: Test flight OK, except auto-land very rough.

Engineers: Auto-land not installed on this aircraft.

Pilots: Something loose in cockpit.

Engineers: Something tightened in cockpit.

Pilots: Dead bugs on windshield.

Engineers: Live bugs on back-order. Pilots: Autopilot in altitude-hold mode produces a 200 feet per minute descent.

Engineers: Cannot reproduce problem on ground.

Pilots: Evidence of leak on right main landing gear.

Engineers: Evidence removed.

Pilots: Friction locks cause throttle levers to stick.

Engineers: That’s what they’re for.

Pilots: Suspected crack in windshield.

Engineers: Suspect you’re right.

Pilots: Number 3 engine missing.

Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Pilots: Aircraft handles funny.

Engineers: Aircraft warned to straighten up, fly right, and be serious.

Pilots: Target radar hums

Engineers: Reprogrammed target radar with lyrics.

Pilots: Mouse in cockpit.

Engineers: Cat installed. And perhaps, the best Qantas joke Qantas

Pilot: Noise coming from under instrument panel. Sounds like a midget pounding on something with a hammer.

Engineers: Took hammer away from midget

Re:This is slashdot...

[RoFLKOPTr]

but I prefer conversing with intelligent people once in a while

Then what the hell are you doing here?

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[zach_the_lizard]

The Dutch may be doing better, but France has even higher youth unemployment than the US. At least, according to those two year old Wolfram statistics.

You've got to be kidding me...

[Maxo-Texas]

http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/210079/20110908/joyce-s-record-pay-rise-rubs-salt-in-qantas-pilots-wounds.htm

Mr Joyce has increased his annual take home pay to $5 million, with other key executives have increased their multimillion dollar packages by similar ratios.

âoeThe 71 per cent increase comes despite the Qantas share price dipping 16 per cent in the last financial year,â AIPA said.

It also comes at a time when Qantas has announced it will be sacking 1000 Australian workers and shifting local operations to Asia to avoid employing Australians.

---
Take a huge raise,
Lay off 1000 employees.
Then shut the airline down when they protest.

Mr. Joyce must be learning how to run a company from Reed Hastings (Netflix).

Re:You've got to be kidding me...

[Anonymous Coward]

Mmmm ...

Joyce takes a pay rise of 75% at the AGM (supported by institutional shareholders)
Share price tanks from $5.40 to $1.50 over the last 4 years
Share price tanks from $3.70 to $1.50 over the Joyce tenure
Dividends haven't been paid to shareholders for 2-3 years
Joyce calls for wildcat shutdown which alienates 68,000 already travelling clients, messes with a couple of a hundred thousand pre-paid Xmas and New Year travel plans that now have to be re-booked with other airlines, and trashes the Qantas brand - terminally if this goes on for too long.
Joyce and the Board have presided over this ... and yet get a pay rise. Suits who have gambled nothing, risked nothing, award themselves pay rises whilst the company is trashed.
I'm a Qantas shareholder, and if I made a play for a pay rise after running the owners interests into the ground like has happened at Qantas I'd be thrown out on my butt. By any employer I can think of.
Best I can hope for now is that Qantas goes into liquidation and I redeem some of my losses from the sale of assets ... which technically speaking are worth more than $1.50 per share.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[slashbart]

Yeah, so it's apparently not so much the social democrat philosophy of the European countries as it is in the implementation of labor laws and other factors. I know there's more labor mobility in the Netherlands than in France, but I don't know why this is so. Unions are more powerful in France, that's for sure, but I don't know if that's an important factor.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[YrWrstNtmr]

Looking at the youth unemployment figures for the USA (17.6%) and that of for instance the Netherlands (6.6%), you seem to be mistaken.

Cherry picking one small country out of Western Europe is misleading.
From wolframalpha:
US - 17.6%
France - 22.6%
Spain - 37.9%
Belgium - 21.9%
Italy - 25.4%
Poland - 20.7% (was WAY higher ~2002 - ~42%)
England - 18.9%

Not a slashdot story

[Rubje]

Absolutely non-technical news. Why is it on here?

Re:This is slashdot...

[tqk]

but I prefer conversing with intelligent people once in a while

Then what the hell are you doing here?

If that's what you think of /., what the hell are you doing here?!? Ritual masochism?

Re:This is slashdot...

[fotoflojoe]

You mean... "It's a trap!" Thank you, Colonel Akbar.

Grounded not the term

[Anonymous Coward]

This may be classified as a nitpick, but I'm am aircraft engineer, and the term "grounded" is usually used when an airline has a problem with their aircraft that brings continued safe operation in question and decides they should not leave the ground.

In this case, clear there's not a damn thing wrong with the aircraft, this is an airline that has chosen to shut itself down.
"Qantas decides to stop flying" or "Airline decides to stop being an airline" would be a more appropriate title.

Unions Obsolete

[Nom du Keyboard]

Unions may have been necessary once, but now the produce nothing but trouble.

The worst union lie of all: Only union workers can produce quality products.

The second worst union lie: If you're not paying dues to a union boss you are automatically an exploited worker.

The third worse union lie: Decertification of union representation is only the result of unfair labor practices.

Re:Unions Obsolete

[batkiwi]

Do you live in the Australia, or are you from the US?

I ask because none of those three lies are told in australia, and it sounds like teamsters/etc talk from the US.

Thanks to the general lack of Americans many things which do not work in the USA work in Australia.

Re:Found this joke about why QANTAS jets do not cr

[Anonymous Coward]

Only trouble with those jokes is that passenger planes generally don't have targeting radars...

Good! That's how you hurt them.

[MacGyver2210]

This is awesome. This is what people in the US should do to protest union-busting and class-warfare by the rich and the right.

I hope this fleet stays grounded until the airline goes bankrupt, so they can see just how much good their decisions have done their stock value.

Re:Good! That's how you hurt them.

[tbird81]

I hope this fleet stays grounded until the airline goes bankrupt, so they can see just how much good their decisions have done their stock value.

Great. Then the workers can go on the dole and get 1/10th of their current salary, and the taxpayer gets to fund this! It's win-win!

Re:Good! That's how you hurt them.

[dbIII]

The stock value previously went down 16% and the CEO's pay went up 71%. They don't care about the shareholders either.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[Anonymous Coward]

it's the only way to be sure.

Re:This is slashdot...

[Anonymous Coward]

We're here testing and observing AIs.

The AIs will soon be smarter than humans. Unfortunately the main reason is the humans will be stupider.

Timely news

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe this isn't really Slashdot material, but I for one am extremely grateful it was posted here. My wife was just making travel arrangements from here in the U.S. and was booking a Qantas flight (she was entering the expiry of her credit card) when I read the headline.

Thanks Slashdot. There may be some people grumpy about the non tech news, but it just so happens you saved our bacon today.

Then the US and EU are obsolute too.....

[RobinEggs]

Unions may have been necessary once, but now the produce nothing but trouble.

So do you want unions abolished? Also, your condemnation doesn't properly apply to unions any more than it does to governments, trade associations, affirmative action groups, militaries, universities, etc. Do you want every one of those organizations abolished, as well? Once people have some power they become deluded enough to invent reasons they should continue holding that level of influence even when many of their aims have been met. They become complacent and guide their attention to unworthy targets. It almost never happens any other way; there's a reason Cincinnatus is a legend to this day, and became a major role model in the forming of the United States.

The solution to greed and complacency is checks and balances, such that an unstable equilibrium can be maintained between competing claimants - including the public - to political and economic influence. Just because that system is no longer tuned correctly doesn't mean it's fundamentally wrong. The total destruction of any organization retaining more power than it currently needs will just leave a nation spending more effort on destroying than on building.

It's worth it here's why

[Anonymous Coward]

This is good thing, since corporate greed is likely here, they wan't maximum profits to increase the CEO's and other high management officers salaries, bonuses and pension plan. All the while, the employees get pitiful salaries, benefits, no bonuses and no pension to speak of. It's about time, the better unions get in dollars the more we can copycat the same of us little paid workers.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[ravenshrike]

If by works very well you mean leaves you utterly unable to defend yourselves against serious threats, then yes, it works very well.

Offshoring vs going out of business

[erice]

But what would you have Qantas do? They have no choice - if QF International is to survive at all, they MUST significantly reduce their cost base. That would be impossible to do while keeping all existing jobs in Australia. And even more impossible to do if the unions force them to pay even more. They are competing against foreign carriers whose costs are half as much, remember. What a sad thing it would be if Qantas - the second oldest continuously operating international airline in the world - was forced to close its doors.

Is there really a difference?

Is applying the Quantus brand to a functionally foreign airline any different than formally shutting down the Australian airline?
Is it better to be laid off when your employer moves it's jobs offshore then to be laid off when your employer slashes operations due to offshore competition?

When someone suggests the only way to save a company is to move it's jobs offshore, it raises the question of what a company is where it's value comes from. I would argue that, aside from the top executives, there is no practical difference between moving a company from the top ( by starting a new company offshore) and moving a company from the bottom (by moving the operations that the executives oversee offshore).

too many movies

[Whippen]

Claims of QANTAS never having a fatal crash are wrong. They have never had a jet crash with fatalities, but they have had non-jet fatal crahes, incidents on jets being fatal (such as workers falling onto the tarmac), and they most certainly have had passengers die in flight.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qantas_fatal_accidents is a start, and google can point you in the direction of more fatal incidents.

How much is the city?

[Anonymous Coward]

I heard they are selling the cities from all over the world in Australia.
How much is the city?
Is it bigger than town?
If we talking about few regions, does that take a more traffic to sell all of them?

heh

[fireylord]

RIght wing codswallop.

Re:Found this joke about why QANTAS jets do not cr

[Colin Douglas Howell]

Pilots: Number 3 engine missing.

Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Heh, nice one, but alas that joke seems to be meaningless for modern airliners. It comes from the days of piston-engined airliners, because only piston engines "miss" (misfire in one or more cylinders).

It is not a strike

[dbIII]

It's poorly run management doing it and not a strike by employees. The union threatened but then cancelled a strike a week or so ago, the union is not doing this. If a union attempted to do this sudden grounding in Australia the organisers would be facing jail terms. Alan Joyce (CEO of QANTAS) can wreck his own airline without going to jail.

CHOGM

[deniable]

We have a lot of Commonwealth politicians in Perth right now. Perth is the most isolated capital in the world. Last I heard, we've got 17 foreign heads of government who are booked on QANTAS. Add in the imported police and various protestors who can't get home and work's going to suck on Monday.

Years of middle management penny pinching

[abelb]

As an Aussie this is the way I've always seen Qantas: Layer upon layer of management looking for ways to move up the chain by squeezing every penny out of their budget. As always it's the workers at the bottom, the ones actually doing the work of keeping planes in the air and getting passengers and luggage on board that get the shaft. Qantas would like the Australian public to sympathise with them, as if they had no choice but to take this action. I think now for the first time every Australian is getting an opportunity to feel first hand what it's like to be on the receiving end of one of managements decisions.

First hand

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm actually posting from SYD, where the strike canceled my flight home to New York. Things seem surprisingly calm, actually. I was able to book United without too much difficultly. It seems that airlines have enough slack to absorb the Qantas flights. I was expecting to have to wait at least another day in Sydney.

Qantas is offering to refund flights or change flights (even changing destinations). For people who get stuck, they're offering AUS$350 per day (almost exactly US$350) to stay in Sydney. It's almost enough to make me with i had gotten stuck. Finally, they're even offering to refund the difference in price if you rebook to another carrier. This whole thing is going to cost Qantas plenty.

At $5M QANTAS CEO Joyce is vastly overpaid

[CuteSteveJobs]

The CEOs of Singapore and Cathay, better airlines, earn much less than Joyce. Joyce and his executive mates just awarded themselves big fat payrises, but are crying poor to the employees. QANTAS is much owned my institutional investors. It is the executives that have all the power and the big fat paychecks. You might want to check this out: http://www.smh.com.au/business/tough-times-in-the-executive-suites-20110907-1jxpo.html 'The former chief executive of Singapore Airlines, C S Chew, for example, managed to get only between $S1.25 million ($982,000) and $S1.5 million ($1.18 million) in his last nine months at the airline. Cathay Pacific's former chief executive (now International Air Transport Association director general) Tony Tyler was paid $HK11.48 ($1.4 million) in his final full year at the airline. Joyce's $5 million pay packet dwarfed that of the head of Asia's largest airline in terms of fleet size and passenger movements, China Southern. The president of the Guangzhou-based airline, Tan Wangeng , was paid a relatively paltry 1.03 million yuan ($153,000) last year. The entire board of China Southern's supervisors, executive directors and non-executive directors (including Tan) was paid about $855,000 during the same period.'

Re:At $5M QANTAS CEO Joyce is vastly overpaid

[Anonymous Coward]

He couldn't award himself a ham sammich, the shareholders have to approve his pay rises.
Their opinions are the only ones that count when it comes to the question of his worth.

Re:WORKERS TO POWER!

[slashbart]

The small country is where I live, and it's definitely a social democracy with high taxation, decent unemployment benefits, mandatory healthcare insurance and such. The original poster equated that with high youth unemployment, and it takes just one counter-example to prove that that hypothesis is wrong.

sorry - Australia's smallest and most pointless...

[SvenDowideit]

if you don't have any planes in the air, you can hardly be called a big airline I wonder how long before one of the major airports just refuses to allow them to land there.

Re:Found this joke about why QANTAS jets do not cr

[Registered Coward v2]

Pilots: Number 3 engine missing.

Engineers: Engine found on right wing after brief search.

Heh, nice one, but alas that joke seems to be meaningless for modern airliners. It comes from the days of piston-engined airliners, because only piston engines "miss" (misfire in one or more cylinders).

True, but it is still funny, IMHO.

Following in America's footsteps

[Anonymous Coward]

Australia is going to end up like America, everything run over seas because it is cheaper and a gutted and limping economy at home. There needs to be a balance between corporate profits and providing value to Australian people. People forget corporations have a responsibility to the nation, not just the bottom line.

Re:Found this joke about why QANTAS jets do not cr

[Anonymous Coward]

Yawn. Joke has been around for years, applied to every (and usually no) airline.

Not domestic airline

[Falconhell]

You might have a point, if QANTAS was not an international airline, flying all over the world.

Re:Not domestic airline

[MichaelSmith]

You might have a point, if QANTAS was not an international airline, flying all over the world.

Well there still is the bit about the CASA being serious about safety, and QANTAS do fly a lot in Australia. More than half of a flight from Melbourne to Singapore is in Australian airspace for example. But I think they are losing commercially because Australians don't feel the need to go to the UK as much any more, and Asian airlines have an advantage there. Losing commercially means they try to compete...

Re:This is slashdot...

[mcgrew]

90% of everything is crap. There isn't anywhere else I know of where you'll see comments about astronomy, for instance, made by folks with PhDs in astronomy. Of course, you have to weed out the idiots, but /.'s moderation system does a better job of helping that than anyone's.

Besides, if you thing this bunch is stupid, go read a Yahoo News messageboard. If brains were dynamite those people wouldn't have enough to blow their noses.