Qantas boss Alan Joyce will begin talks with unions today after the airline announced it would shed 5,000 jobs as part of a plan to save $2 billion over the coming three years.

Mr Joyce will meet with unions representing Qantas employees, from pilots to baggage handlers, who are waiting to find out which jobs will go.

The ABC understands 1,500 jobs will come from management and non-operational sides of the business and 300 engineering jobs will be going in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.

Voluntary redundancies will also be offered across a range of divisions and worksites.

Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Dave Oliver says unions will be pushing the airline for details about where the cuts will come from.

"I think it's premature to talk about industrial action at this stage. We want commitments from Qantas that they are going to share all the relevant information," he said.

"I don't think it's proper that Alan Joyce should stand up to the world and say they've got to get $2 billion of savings and (cut) 5,000 jobs.

"It's easier for him to start bandying around numbers, but what we're talking about is 5,000 livelihoods."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-28/qantas-boss-joyce-to-meet-with-unions-over-job-cuts/5289746

Gus: the restructuring of Qantas jobs would be more credible if Alan Joyce resigned or was booted out — as the first part of the restructuring. At the same level, Tony Abbott should be booted out as he has presided over more job losses than can be created... Go away Tony...

Former Labor minister and ACTU president Martin Ferguson has urged Tony Abbott to go further than his "modest" proposed reforms to the Fair Work Act.

Mr Ferguson was the resources minister in the Rudd-Gillard governments and retired from politics at the last election.

He now chairs an advisory board for the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA).

Speaking at the APPEA annual conference in Perth, Mr Ferguson issued a blunt warning saying both unions and workplace laws must change to address rising unemployment and boost productivity.

He says the current industrial relations framework is sending Australian jobs offshore.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-28/fair-work-act-needs-reform-ferguson/5290282

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What a lot of twaddle... The way the Aussie dollar stood up against other currencies has a lot more to do with bleeding the industrial sectors. The money market is an interest-rate whore that steals cash from decent people, including workers, to satisfy the currency wars of banks...

Now that the Aussie dollar is around the 90 US cents (a near 15 % drop in value — something that cannot be achieved by changing wage conditions), we need to stop the bleeding by becoming smarter at management, innovation and at development levels rather than hit the workers in the arse. The more you hit workers in the hip-pocket or in their rights, the less they are likely to perform HAPPILY... I know, it's a contrary philosophy to that of an army, where one has to fill the brains of young soldiers, often the cream of fitness, with crap about duty and god while keeping them "hungry" so they can die with a smile on their face after having been "courageous"...

Older workers know the trick: One is made promises of bounty should one work harder but more often than not, these bounties never end up in workers pocket... or they are soon wiped out in a draconian Industrial Relation exercise...

BUT for people like Ferguson, IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN EASIER TO KICK WORKERS IN THE BUTT INSTEAD OF DEVELOPING industrial STUFF PROPERLY. The lack of imagination is mind boggling apart from a few "successes".

We can do far better...

Why do former Labor Party politicians, but not old Liberals, turn on their Party once they leave politics. David Horton says it's all about deep pockets.

'The man who is not a socialist at twenty has no heart, but if he is still a socialist at forty he has no head.'

WELL, Aristide, prime minister of France 11 times, was certainly a socialist when young, but perhaps felt himself as an international statesmen becoming more right-wing as he became older.

It is an aphorism that is endlessly quoted, with knowing smirks, by the right — most famously by Churchill, trying to counteract the opposite observation by John Stuart Mill:

And trying to counteract modern studies showing that politically conservative people have, on average, a lower IQ than politically progressive people.

Not the point I want to discuss though, though related.

I can’t think of a single Republican or Conservative retired politician (correct me if I am wrong) who has in later life rejected his/or her former party and beliefs and become a media darling endlessly bagging both. In Australia, the only example of a Liberal (the misleading name of our very conservative party) doing such a thing is former PM Malcolm Fraser. And in Malcolm’s case, the major source of criticism (and good on him) relates to the savage asylum seeker policies of his former party (he publicly resigned), not so much a critique of conservative ideology in general.

Conversely, some former Labor Party (think American Democrats, British Labour) ministers in Australia seem to queue up to appear in the media, especially News Limited, outlets to pour political excrement on their former Party, its members and its beliefs. As the present deputy leader of the party, Tanya Plibersek, once said:

Why is it so?

My political beliefs, left-wing from the time I knew what political beliefs were, have become more left-wing with age. I do criticise Labor and The Greens, but only when they appear to be moving right on some issue, or when they fail Politics 101 in campaigning, not because of their beliefs.

How can former Labor ministers do so then?

People join the conservative political parties because they fundamentally believe in the libertarian/neoconservative/pro-business/anti-poor/anti-environment/anti-union ideology. Oh sure, once upon a time there were members who were there because of some 19th century view of freedom of expression – a view of liberalism as rugged individualism – but such membership has long since been purged from the modern tea-party-controlled versions of those old 'centre-right' parties.

So when they retire, hard right ideology untempered by reality, they can if they want a lucrative career, march into the welcoming arms of Rupert Murdoch and other media barons, and be paid for doing what they would do for free — slagging off any political position left of Genghis Khan.

The Labor situation is quite different.

The Labor (or Labour, or Democratic) Party is a broad church — not like the conservative monocultures. There are members who are there, say, because of their union membership, but who are as opposed to same sex marriage or environmental protection as the most rabid Liberal. There are people totally opposed to censorship and others wanting to stop people reading erotic literature and so on.

Being a member of the Labor Party, unlike the Liberal Party, doesn’t imply a portmanteau of views; doesn’t imply a progressive viewpoint at all, in fact. There are, it seems, quite a number of Labor people who, but for accidents of family or history – sliding doors – could have comfortably been Liberal all along. The reverse, however, never very frequent, is now impossible.

In both parties too, there are people who see politics as a career, not a belief system and join whichever party they think looks the most promising for their advancement — which one is most likely to see the removal of the baton from the knapsack. Perhaps more in Labor, where intelligence and ability can still sometimes be qualification for promotion of likely lads and lasses.

So, potential supply, but what of the demand for former Labor people trashing the Labor Party? Why does Rupert want to pierce their necks with his canines and turn them into vampires?

Elementary my dear Watson.

Former Lib ministers are reliable, will always turn on the implanted chip with the latest talking points, slogans, abusive remarks, no question — just point them at the microphone and the latest target and away they go.

But with reliability comes predictability; comes, dare I say it, boredom.

You can present them as impartial objective commentators, members of think tanks, business groups, without referring to them as “former Liberal ministers” — but still, people know them; might just be tempted to dismiss some trash talk about the Labor Party as “well he would say that, wouldn’t he”.

On the other hand, someone who can be labelled, with flaming letters a mile high, as a “former Labor Minister” carries Mandela-like legitimacy — “Gosh, a former Labor minister criticising Labor, must be true, bet it hurts and saddens him to say it, things must be really bad”.

Furthermore, the principle that the convert is holier than the Pope holds as true for politics as religion. A former Labor man (I can’t think of a Labor woman that has followed this path) will, to show his bona fides to his new comrades, lash his old friends with even more fervour than a born to rule Liberal.

So, glittering prizes for those willing to turn their gaze from the light on the hill to the light on the 99th floor. Directorships, board memberships, consultancies, club memberships, to go with the regular media appearances. Nothing too good for the newest member of the club.

Look, I’m sure the pay is good, very good. Rupert has very deep pockets, plenty of bucks — but, oh dear, the company you’d have to keep.

I’d rather hang out with Ms Plibersek, I believe.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/political-rats-the-buck-stops-here,6236

see also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/13554

Ferguson told the ABC’s Four Corners program on Monday night the royal commission was doing important work.

“I just don’t see the royal commission as a political play thing, I actually think it’s potentially, um, going to be very important in reforming the trade union movement and the Labor party – and I will not damn it,” he said.

Ferguson’s comments in a program revisiting the trade union past of the Labor leader, Bill Shorten, came as the commissioner heading up the inquiry, the former high court justice Dyson Heydon, delayed a decision about whether or not he will disqualify himself from the current inquiry into union corruption.

Heydon’s stewardship of the commission ran into significant controversyafter it was revealed a fortnight ago that he planned to speak at a Liberal party fundraiser, the Sir Garfield Barwick lecture. Heydon was expected to rule on his future at the commission on Tuesday, but instead delayed the decision.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/aug/24/former-actu-leader-martin-ferguson-backs-unions-royal-commission

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Ferguson pisses on workers some more... He should have mentioned how a (Liberal?) friend of Abbott and Pyne, Ms Jackson embezzled money from the HSU (but the Heydon Royal Commission did not go very far on this one)...

The unions themselves are not the problem, it's SOME (a few — not all) of their bosses who abuse their position like some Bank Managers abuse their contractual agreements with their customers... There is no need for a "Royal Commission" in Unions, only a police matter in some cases. But I guess like a good catholic boy taking revenge, Ferguson lets it rip against his former mates and against the people who provided him with employment for all these years... Double standards, I guess... 

As some smart arse said once, "I piss on you because I love youse"... See toon at top and read from top...