QF Baggage "Go Slow" over Christmas?

[TC15]

I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that the baggage handlers were considering some sort of action over the Christmas period. Has anyone heard/experienced if this has in fact happened (or will happen)?

I've got a short turnaround in MEL on Friday, QF to Rex. Will probably try and cram everything into carry-on if possible, just to be safe.

No need to make smart comments about their working pace on "normal" days

 

[JohnK]

I have not heard anything but would not surprise me as baggage handlers usually want to make their point during peak season and disrupt as many travellers as possible.

 

[Simsy85]

BNE was chaos yesterday with check-in and bags, thank-god I checked in at the J desk.

Not only did QF manage to bugger up our seating which meant we didn't get a bassinette for bub (even though we were told at Check-in we did) but when we landed in DRW and got our bag, the brand new suitcase i bought for my partner for chrissie, had a hole punched right through it....

 

[Postcode]

Unfortunately under the current system in place in Australia and many other countries, the most effective and as a last resort option for an employer to take note that employees are serious about reaching a satisfactory new industrial agreement is to strike.

Strike action is never taken lightly, especially at this time of year with expenses due to the time of year. It costs workers to strike - it's no holiday, but in the hope of giving management a clear message they demand to negotiate better pay/working conditions/recognitions for increased responsibilities and so on.

These are ordinary blokes and not overpaid stuffed shirts sitting on company boards who fly around the country on company accounts whinging about the quality of the champers.

Yep it's inconvenient for the traveller. Let QF or whatever airline along with airport management that you value your luggage being onloaded and offloaded and on time and suggest they could they enter into meaningful discussions with baggage handlers as you look forward to seeing your luggage at the end of your flight.

I took strike action three times during the year and it made my employer sit up and listen after a year of being fobbed off and offered nothing. The result was benefits for the employer, the clients and for myself and profession.

Some employers think Howard is still in charge and act accordingly. He went out the back door because of it. People forget that.

 

[dfcatch]

Unfortunately under the current system in place in Australia and many other countries, the most effective and as a last resort option for an employer to take note that employees are serious about reaching a satisfactory new industrial agreement is to strike.

Strike action is never taken lightly, especially at this time of year with expenses due to the time of year. It costs workers to strike - it's no holiday, but in the hope of giving management a clear message they demand to negotiate better pay/working conditions/recognitions for increased responsibilities and so on.

These are ordinary blokes and not overpaid stuffed shirts sitting on company boards who fly around the country on company accounts whinging about the quality of the champers.

Yep it's inconvenient for the traveller. Let QF or whatever airline along with airport management that you value your luggage being onloaded and offloaded and on time and suggest they could they enter into meaningful discussions with baggage handlers as you look forward to seeing your luggage at the end of your flight.

I took strike action three times during the year and it made my employer sit up and listen after a year of being fobbed off and offered nothing. The result was benefits for the employer, the clients and for myself and profession.

Some employers think Howard is still in charge and act accordingly. He went out the back door because of it. People forget that.

Except that unions like the baggage handlers have, over the years, taken the public for a ride and have striked on ambit claims, and ridiculous pay rise requests that far outstrip the rest of the workforce.

If baggage handlers want more respect from me, and want me to support their claims from QF management, then they should start by delivering my baggage on time on a regular basis. Australian baggage handlers are some of the worst in the world in terms of efficiency and getting the job done.

Fix that, and then I'll support their claims.

Oh, and if some lazy bugger gets the sack for being lazy, or breaking rules, then he gets the cough. That is NOT a valid reason to strike.

 

[Postcode]

Ambit claims are made from both sides to establish what they want. Nothing new there. What ridiculous pay rise request is being requested? I'd like to know. Make your cause known when it's going to be noticed. Workers are not as stupid as their bosses seem to hope and think. And treat them.

Info please along with source in regards to "Australian baggage handlers are some of the worst in the world in terms of efficiency and getting the job done."

LHR, LAX, JFK and CDG, seem way worse to me on personal experiences but you seem to have more info. Ever been on a plane and watching your luggage being thrown around before an AA flight?

Please include QF management and customer service in that statement about being lazy. QF is and becoming worse. Speak to them on the phone and it's like they are trying to find the curtains where they can avoid they paying public just like their FAs do in the air.

 

[JohnPhelan]

Please include QF management and customer service in that statement about being lazy. QF is and becoming worse. Speak to them on the phone and it's like they are trying to find the curtains where they can avoid they paying public just like their FAs do in the air.

Postcode, by all means support the baggage handlers if you want to, but please don't defame other staff. To suggest that FAs and other staff seek to "avoid the paying public" is just childish - and, in my experience, simply wrong. I note that you chastise others for making claims without providing proof - well, where is your proof for that particular assertion? Or is it just that (obviously) you don't like QF, so are taking the scattergun approach to blast them all ?

 

[Postcode]

Postcode, by all means support the baggage handlers if you want to, but please don't defame other staff. To suggest that FAs and other staff seek to "avoid the paying public" is just childish - and, in my experience, simply wrong. I note that you chastise others for making claims without providing proof - well, where is your proof for that particular assertion? Or is it just that (obviously) you don't like QF, so are taking the scattergun approach to blast them all ?

I was once a very happy paying passenger of QF. Even recommended joining QF frequent flyer scheme to countless friends who took advantage of it.

I fly Y on most domestic flights and J on most international flights. Until now.

Onboard service compared to CX, AY, AF is inferior based on my experiences over many years. I made a post on this site where I was told off by J FAs while for looking for water as they gave me some several hours ago. FAs were enjoying the behind the curtain experience and having a passenger dropping into the advertised inflight bar/nibblies part was not acceptable to them. The gossip I overheard about QF management and each other was worth the brief walk around though. Even better than the IFE which was being rebooted yet again.

Email QF about your paid flying experience and you get an automated email saying they will reply in a few weeks. If they do. Phoning will get a sympathetic operator who does little. Promises about a small compensation result in nothing.

As for being childish - I probably have quite a few years on you and please try to be civil. You sound like a QF FA or call centre phone answerer.

And you're right. I don't like QF. I did once though. 16 years of being a frequent flyer with them and OW and there are other options which I am more than happy to take up. Just because a plane has a kangaroo painted on it and we're told 'We still call Australia home' is not enough to make me want to fly with them.

They need to treat their staff and passengers properly otherwise it's even fewer passengers giving their business elsewhere. Simple business practice - treat your workers properly and they will do their job properly and go even further.

 

[dfcatch]

Ambit claims are made from both sides to establish what they want. Nothing new there. What ridiculous pay rise request is being requested? I'd like to know. Make your cause known when it's going to be noticed. Workers are not as stupid as their bosses seem to hope and think. And treat them.

Info please along with source in regards to "Australian baggage handlers are some of the worst in the world in terms of efficiency and getting the job done."

LHR, LAX, JFK and CDG, seem way worse to me on personal experiences but you seem to have more info. Ever been on a plane and watching your luggage being thrown around before an AA flight?

Please include QF management and customer service in that statement about being lazy. QF is and becoming worse. Speak to them on the phone and it's like they are trying to find the curtains where they can avoid they paying public just like their FAs do in the air.

We'll have to agree to disagree here but to answer your questions:

- yes, I watch my luggage regularly when flying AA, and CX and BA and NZ and AC, ALL of whom seem to be able to get my luggage out a lot quicker than my average wait time at SYD or MEL.

- YMMV, but in my personal experience, Australian baggage handlers are slow and inefficient compared to my experiences in other countries.

- Baggage handlers are in a position to hold not just QF management but the travelling public to ransom. And IMHO that level of power requires the careful exercise of its use. Going on strike unreasonably only serves to put the public offside. I remember all to well, too many strikes that have in my opinion NOT been justified.
Back in the real world (the world where the majority of employees live), you don't get pay increases significantly above cost of living adjustments. Furthermore, in the real world, if you want to make a significant claim, you need to demonstrate improvements in productivity and or work practices.
Ultimately, it is me, as the airline passenger who pays when the union is granted obscene pay increases. Or when management has a gun to their head by the union at Xmas time.

I'm not blindly defending QF management, I've always been critical of QF where necessary.

What I am critical of is when I am personally inconvenienced by a belligerent union who lost my respect many years ago.

Personally, if you really think you are being ripped off and taken advantage of by your boss...then quit and go work somewhere else.

That's what the rest of us do in the real world.

 

[JohnPhelan]

As for being childish - I probably have quite a few years on you and please try to be civil. You sound like a QF FA or call centre phone answerer.
.

No, I don't work for QF (or in the airline/travel industry at all). Why would you make that assumption? As I said in my earlier post, you shouldn't make broadbrush remarks about people just because they disagree with your viewpoint. And why you would assume you are older than I, I have no idea. I try NOT to make assumptions and brand people; I'd suggest you follow suit.

I find the majority of QF crews are excellent. Like most here, I have also had some dreadful ones; but this is a small minority, fortunately. A lot sems to depend on the attitude of the CSM and his/her expectations of crew. And I have to say that I have always found the QFF service centre to be quite efficient and helpful. Perhaps I have just been lucky.

And as for the industrial issue: in the same way that you have chosen not to fly QF because you don't like them - which is your right - then, similarly, people who don't like working for QF should choose to work elsewhere, rather than try to blackmail the airline by hurting the travelling public.

 

[Simsy85]

What I am critical of is when I am personally inconvenienced by a belligerent union who lost my respect many years ago.

Personally, if you really think you are being ripped off and taken advantage of by your boss...then quit and go work somewhere else.

That's what the rest of us do in the real world.

Ok I'm gonna start my rant.

Actually it's not what "the rest of us do in the real world".

Union membership and the right to collectively bargin is a right that is enshrined in legislation. People feel pretty strongly about it - its ended up costing a government power in 2007 - you might have heard of a little thing called work choices.

You might not like it but the 5 million odd union members across Australia (which makes up half of our workforce) do. (we might have a population of 20m but half of them are kids, retiree's or pensioners/unemployed)

And you know what, some people might actually like their job and not want to quit and work in a different industry just because they're being unfairly treated at work.

Cost of living has gone up by about 75% in the last 20 years, average wages have only increased by about 30% - you wonder why they take strike action? because it gets wonks like you, with your WP status to whinge to QF and tell them its not good enough that you had to wait 20 minutes longer for your bag!

RANT OVER.

 

[samh004]

Cost of living has gone up by about 75% in the last 20 years, average wages have only increased by about 30% - you wonder why they take strike action? because it gets wonks like you, with your WP status to whinge to QF and tell them its not good enough that you had to wait 20 minutes longer for your bag!

RANT OVER.

If they did their job to a high standard, getting everything right 99% of the time than I’d be with them in their strike action, but as it stands they don’t do a very good job, in a number of areas, so why should they be paid more for doing exactly the same… I don’t think that’s right.

 

[dfcatch]

Ok I'm gonna start my rant.

Actually it's not what "the rest of us do in the real world".

Union membership and the right to collectively bargin is a right that is enshrined in legislation. People feel pretty strongly about it - its ended up costing a government power in 2007 - you might have heard of a little thing called work choices.

You might not like it but the 5 million odd union members across Australia (which makes up half of our workforce) do. (we might have a population of 20m but half of them are kids, retiree's or pensioners/unemployed)

And you know what, some people might actually like their job and not want to quit and work in a different industry just because they're being unfairly treated at work.

Cost of living has gone up by about 75% in the last 20 years, average wages have only increased by about 30% - you wonder why they take strike action? because it gets wonks like you, with your WP status to whinge to QF and tell them its not good enough that you had to wait 20 minutes longer for your bag!

RANT OVER.

Views accepted...

Although IIRC I'm not too sure on your figures.

I'll have to go and check your inflation and wage increase figures.

But I'm happy to wager a beer that the percentage of union members in the workforce is a lot lower than 50%.

In fact I'm pretty sure that recent figures showed that it was at the lowest level in modern history (eg. less than 20%).

I'm happy to be corrected, and will check for myself when I'm back on a real computer.

The fact remains that IMHO, unless you want to alienate the public, don't strike, don't threaten, don't hold a gun to management, and don't inconvenience me unless you have a DARN good reason to. And that Johnny got fired for smoking pot on the job (or for whatever reason), is not an excuse for the bruvvers to get all hot and bothered.

But, by all means, nothing wrong with collective bargaining and positioning and ambit claims are all part of that. Just remember that striking shouldn't be a first-strike tactic. It should be a last resort only.

And FWIW I can't for the life of me remember a strike where i felt the claim was worthy of the strike.

I'll stop baiting now

Sam - agree 100%!!