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Of 'kamikazes' and 'mad men': The fallout from the Qantas industrial dispute

2013; University of Melbourne; Volume: 36; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

0025-8938

Anthony Forsyth, Andrew Stewart,

Digital Economy and Work Transformation

This article examines the industrial dispute between Australia's 'flagship' airline, Qantas Ltd ('Qantas'), and three trade unions - the Transport Workers' Union ('TWU'), the Australian and International Pilots Association ('AIPA') and the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association ('ALAEA') - which occurred from mid-2010, throughout 2011 and into 2012. The dispute arose out of negotiations between Qantas and the three unions, under pt 2-4 of the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) ('FW Act'), for new enterprise agreements to regulate the terms and conditions of employment of relevant Qantas employees. Following many months of 'protected' (lawful) industrial action by members of the three unions, Qantas took the controversial and dramatic step of grounding its worldwide fleet on 29 October 2011. This was accompanied by the company giving notice that it would lock out employees covered by the three unions, with effect from 31 October. The federal government then applied to Fair Work Australia ('FWA') to have all protected industrial action by parties to the Qantas dispute terminated. This application was granted by a Full Bench of FWA, providing the basis for the tribunal to make a workplace determination resolving the matters in dispute between Qantas and each of the unions (after a statutory negotiation period had been exhausted).