Qantas staff 'interrogated' over joke

[oz_mark]

From Yahoo! Qantas staff 'interrogated' over joke - Yahoo!7 News

A rude joke amongst Qantas cabin crew led to airline management intimidating flight attendants and interrogating them four days after the joke was made, a union says.

A Flight Attendants' Association of Australia memo says a group of Qantas cabin crew managers met an inbound flight from Honolulu on Friday, October 27 - four days after the joke had been made by a flight attendant during a staff briefing.

The union says cabin crew were then split up and interrogated.

[..more..]

 

[Yada Yada]

Geoff Dixon, Margaret Jackson and a union official walk into a bar...

Seriously though, what happened to management's sense of humour? The more they treat QF workers like cough, the more their customers suffer through dispirited, unhappy crews. A friend of mine who is a QF pilot said that he and many he worked with have had a gutful of management's belligerent attitude.

 

[Dave Noble]

I don't think that there is enough information to form an real opinion one way or other since there is no details about what the allegation is

Dave

 

[Yada Yada]

I don't think that there is enough information to form an real opinion one way or other since there is no details about what the allegation is

There is enough information for me to form the opinion that management's reaction was extraordinarily heavy-handed. This was not about investigating a major safety breach or criminal activity. It was all about a joke told four days earlier! Management's action to line up on the aerobridge while pax are still deplaning so they could board the plane and isolate individual crew members to ask questions is a very heavy-handed response.

 

[bambbbam2]

There is enough information for me to form the opinion that management's reaction was extraordinarily heavy-handed. This was not about investigating a major safety breach or criminal activity. It was all about a joke told four days earlier! Management's action to line up on the aerobridge while pax are still deplaning so they could board the plane and isolate individual crew members to ask questions is a very heavy-handed response.

Why heavy-handed? Surely if you have nothing to hide, what is the issue with "Management" asking you questions?

How do you know that it wasn't about "investigating a major safety breach or criminal activity", and how would "management" know that it wasn't unless they investigated. Someone has obviously logged an issue, and it's only fair that it is investigated.

I think this really demonstrates the problems that Qantas and unions have. It's the real us and them mentality - there is no "management" in business.. it's only a group of people that should be pulling in the same direction.

 

[SeatBackForward]

Well if they had the Virgin policy "We Take Jokes Seriously" then I'd be concerned...

 

[NM]

And all we have is one side of the story as reported to the media by the union - hardly an unbiased perspective of the situation.

And if the QF management did not investigate the allegation, then the same media would be asking why they did not follow up on the complaint. There must have been some sort of complaint lodged by someone and surely there is then a responsibility to follow it up. Doing so quickly and without warning does not allow those involved to collude to establish a common "recollection" of the event.

I see this as a very sensitive situation that the QF management has to follow up. I am unable to draw a conclusion regarding whether the process followed as appropriate or not since we only have one side reporting their view of the process.

 

[one9]

And all we have is one side of the story as reported to the media by the union - hardly an unbiased perspective of the situation.

And if the QF management did not investigate the allegation, then the same media would be asking why they did not follow up on the complaint. There must have been some sort of complaint lodged by someone and surely there is then a responsibility to follow it up. Doing so quickly and without warning does not allow those involved to collude to establish a common "recollection" of the event.

I see this as a very sensitive situation that the QF management has to follow up. I am unable to draw a conclusion regarding whether the process followed as appropriate or not since we only have one side reporting their view of the process.

I agree with

 

[Dave Noble]

There is enough information for me to form the opinion that management's reaction was extraordinarily heavy-handed. This was not about investigating a major safety breach or criminal activity. It was all about a joke told four days earlier! Management's action to line up on the aerobridge while pax are still deplaning so they could board the plane and isolate individual crew members to ask questions is a very heavy-handed response.

I still maintain that there is not enough information to form a valid opinion. Someone seems to have lodged a complaint of some description and it was investigated. Without knowing the full details , how can it be determined if it was heavy handed or not? It could have been a serious issue that was reported and the staff are claiming what was heard /reported was a joke for example.

Dave

 

[one9]

And all we have is one side of the story as reported to the media by the union - hardly an unbiased perspective of the situation.

And if the QF management did not investigate the allegation, then the same media would be asking why they did not follow up on the complaint. There must have been some sort of complaint lodged by someone and surely there is then a responsibility to follow it up. Doing so quickly and without warning does not allow those involved to collude to establish a common "recollection" of the event.

I see this as a very sensitive situation that the QF management has to follow up. I am unable to draw a conclusion regarding whether the process followed as appropriate or not since we only have one side reporting their view of the process.

I agree with you.

 

[Yada Yada]

Why heavy-handed? Surely if you have nothing to hide, what is the issue with "Management" asking you questions?

I am assuming that it that is not normal for management to greet arriving planes in number, take staff aside and question them at length about an incident. This seems like a very serious response to what has been reported as "a joke". That seems heavy-handed to me. Let's see if Qantas now go public with details of any alleged safety/security/criminal breach as they have done in the past.

BTW, no-one with "nothing to hide" enjoys a surprise interrogation.

How do you know that it wasn't about "investigating a major safety breach or criminal activity", and how would "management" know that it wasn't unless they investigated. Someone has obviously logged an issue, and it's only fair that it is investigated.

It was reported as a joke. I doubt that even the union would defend a member if they were involved with a breach of safety requiring management to board a plane upon arrival.

I think this really demonstrates the problems that Qantas and unions have. It's the real us and them mentality - there is no "management" in business.. it's only a group of people that should be pulling in the same direction.

While I agree with the idea that everyone should be pulling in the same direction, management has no-one to blame but itself if this is not the case. It is their job to ensure that this happens by managing people well. If it's not happening then they have failed.

 

[JohnK]

I am assuming that it that is not normal for management to greet arriving planes in number, take staff aside and question them at length about an incident. This seems like a very serious response to what has been reported as "a joke". That seems heavy-handed to me. Let's see if Qantas now go public with details of any alleged safety/security/criminal breach as they have done in the past.

BTW, no-one with "nothing to hide" enjoys a surprise interrogation.

I am not taking sides here but without knowing the details of the incident it would be hard to make a judgement call. Maybe management did feel the "joke" was serious enough to want to have surprise interrogation.

If they didn't take these surprise measures and gave the cabin crew notice that they need to explain the incident to management, and the incident is serious enough, then they really have given the crew time to synchronise their stories.

 

[Soundguy]

Yeah, the mass media are full of cr_p; I scaresly believe any of what they report these days. It could have been an innocent joke or it may not have been a joke at all.

In fact I don't bother to follow local news at all. The greatest truth in todays newspapers is on the comics page & it isn't worth buying the average rag just for that, so I look through a paper only when Qantas gives me a free one! Same goes for TV and radio, I don't bother with it either. Which is funny seeing as this is where my employment comes from.....