iscover
The TWU has called on shareholders to be allowed to vote to reinstate workers who were outsourced by the airline at tomorrow’s crucial AGM.
It follows the Federal Court last year ruling that the Flying Kangaroo was wrong to outsource 2,000 ground handling roles and subsequently rejecting the first appeal.
The union initially pushed for the employees to be allowed to come back to their old jobs, but a judge said a return would be impossible given the airline has already dismantled its Qantas Ground Services team and offloaded its equipment.
On Thursday, TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said, “Shareholders should have the opportunity to cast genuine votes on the future of the airline under a new CEO, the reinstatement of illegally sacked workers, and an appropriate performance-based bonus structure which reflects the past year of utter chaos.
“Instead, whichever way shareholders vote today, Alan Joyce will walk away millions of dollars richer, despite having systematically trashed a once-iconic brand.
“Meanwhile, workers who have kept the airline afloat are still struggling after two years of wage freezes.”
The outsourced workers’ compensation is due to be decided at a hearing in December, but Qantas has already launched another appeal against the ruling, this time to the High Court.
It comes after it emerged this week that one of the three major ‘proxy firms’ representing Qantas shareholders has recommended investors vote down one of CEO Alan Joyce’s bonus packages.
The Australian Financial Review reported that ISS has told its members that his targets aren’t “sufficiently challenging” ahead of the AGM.
Qantas said in response that Joyce was the only CEO on the ASX 100 not to receive a bonus in three years and added that the group was the only proxy adviser to take such a stance.
“All of the other major shareholder advisers — CGI Glass Lewis, Ownership Matters, ACSI and the ASA — are supporting the FY22 remuneration report and incentives,” it said.
The disagreement involves the shorter-term ‘executive retention scheme’, which targets include keeping Qantas’ net debt below a target level; cutting $1 billion of costs by June; and returning the wider company to profitability by the end of the current financial year.
Should those goals be met, Joyce would receive shares worth around $4 million at current prices.
The dispute comes despite Qantas this month revealing it was on course for a remarkable turnaround that will see its target an underlying profit before tax of up to $1.3 billion in the first half of the current financial year.
Vannus
says:These GHS workers’, who put their hands out for very generous Redundancy $ packages from QANTAS, can’t, & won’t be reinstated whatever the TWU says, or wants.
They each signed a Contract, which would include a ‘no reinstatement’ clause.
The TWU personnages’ are so thick, they don’t want to understand this, & they continue for bleat on, & on nonstop, for a couple of years’ now, so much so that everyone is fed-up to the back teeth with their, & Kaine’s continuous diatribes’.
Hopefully, QANTAS’ High Court result will stop all this codswallop totally.
Kim
says:As a share holder.
I would not vote to bring them back
Ashley
says:Being a shareholder too, NO way I’d vote them back.
As said in comment above by Vannus, they’ve already got ‘compensation’ enough, through redundancy multi-100’s or 1000’s of dollars.
Enough is well, & truly enough of this situation.
larry cocks
says:I am a shareholder and a frequent flyer of the Qantas brand.I do believe that the treatment of experienced valuable Qantas staff is against the principles of the brand. Its astonshing that the CEO is given a bonus for trashing the brand and the treatment of staff. The government handout was to assist staff during COVID Thousands of staff were stood down After reading the annual report it indicates the airline is not providing a service of quality Staff are exhausted and on different wages rates doing the same job. Qantas has lost its way