That of the union: “The overpaid general manager expects all workers to freeze their salaries as the board hides bonuses and stock options for Qantas executives.”
While Qantas made his own pot, labeling the union’s action as “unreasonable” and “unnecessary”.
To be clear, the only thing that has happened so far is that the Fair Work Commission has given its approval to the engineers ’union, the ALAEA, to hold a vote of members to vote on the union action. But the union expects all three groups of engineers to vote overwhelmingly in favor of industrial action.
Assigning the merits of each protagonist is notoriously dangerous to outside viewers.
But apparently the engineers, whose business agreement expired three and a half years ago, have not had any salary increases in that period. So instead of the “holder” of 12 percent, it would be a 3 percent annual recovery.
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Qantas offers its unionized workforce a mins package: a two-year pay freeze followed by 2% increases over the next two years, a $ 5,000 bonus payment if accepted, and the equivalent of $ 4,500 in Qantas stock options.
Given the current level of inflation, this supply represents a decline in real wages for much of Qantas ’workforce. The company says 4,000 of the 19,000 employees from 10 different groups have already signed up to its agreement.
That said, Qantas has earned a reputation for tough tactics in labor relations since it grounded its entire fleet to cope with industrial action in 2011.
This time, Qantas discusses less about the merits of the engineers ’claim and more about their financial ability to pay them.
No one denies that Qantas had great financial success throughout the pandemic. It had to take on additional debt to bolster liquidity, raise shareholder capital and receive more than $ 1.5 billion in government grants.
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Since then, the airline has carried out a financial recovery similar to Lazarus. Throughout this calendar year, it has paid $ 1.5 billion in debt, after which it still expects to make a profit of about half a billion dollars before taxes and interest depreciation.
The airline has been hit by higher fuel costs, but has responded by reducing capacity and raising fares.
No one will listen more closely than engineers to what Qantas says in July about its prospects for fiscal year 2023.
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