Emergency hearing into Qantas dispute, but no end in sight after total grounding

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce leaves a press conference after announcing all flights are grounded immediately due to pressure from the unions. Photo: Dallas Kilponen

There is no end in sight to the Qantas industrial dispute that has crippled Australia's aviation industry and left thousands of passengers stranded.

An emergency Fair Work Australia hearing into the Qantas dispute has just resumed after a two-hour break, and three Qantas witnesses will be heard with testimony likely to last into the early hours of Sunday morning.
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The first, Lyell Strambi, group executive of airline operations, has told the hearing that demands by engineers for Australian servicing of Airbus A380 aircraft are not economical.

Mr Strambi said that Qantas's competitors "have access to cheaper labour" and that a lack of flexibility in servicing would limit "the ability of the business to adapt to new technology".

He told the Fair Work hearing tonight that recent industrial action had cost Qantas about $68 million and pushed customers to competing airlines.

"We're seeing a really big impact in our forward bookings," he said. "It makes sense. If passengers can't be sure... They're less likely to book with us."

Mr Strambi put forward an internal risk assessment report as evidence, which outlined possible consequences and benefits of a staff lockout.

He described pilots as a group of people that like control and said a grounding and lockout would take power and control away from the pilots' union.

The emergency hearing of the industrial umpire followed an application by the federal government under section 424 of the Fair Work Act.

It follows Qantas' shock announcement yesterday to immediately ground its domestic and international flights, and lock out engineers, pilots and other employees beginning on Monday night.

The move comes as a result of a long-running industrial impasse between Qantas and three unions: the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA), the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA).

Jetstar, QantasLink and Jet Connect are not affected by the Qantas action.

Qantas and a number of unions addressed the FWA hearing in Melbourne, which was videolinked to Canberra and Sydney on Saturday.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/travel/travel-news/emergency-hearing-into-qantas-dispute-but-no-end-in-sight-after-total-grounding-20111030-1mpxt.html#ixzz1cBBklhDN