Ansett: Flying fickle finger of blame

by Bob Briton

The ACTU's "Keep Ansett Flying" campaign continues with rallies and other 
actions around Australia. At the time of going to press there was still no 
reprieve for the 16,000 Ansett workers who had been stood down on September 
13 by the Administrator appointed by Air New Zealand. There was however 
good news for the 1000 employees of Traveland whose doors have reopened 
under new ownership. An estimated 60,000 jobs are directly or indirectly at 
risk if the airline does not get back into the air in some form or 
other.

The main priorities of the union campaign are to save as many jobs as 
possible; maintain Qantas/Ansett wages and conditions; maintain 
unionisation; and to secure full payment of entitlements.

If Ansett employees are made redundant (at present they are stood down, not 
sacked), they will entitled to payments totalling around $800 million for 
annual leave, long service leave, payment in lieu of notice and redundancy 
benefits. That does not include outstanding superannuation payments.

Last Friday there were protests around Australia.

Vic Williams reports from Perth that up to 4000 Ansett and Sky West workers 
met at Solidarity Park, called together by Unions WA, and marched to 
Parliament House. 

A large group of construction workers from the CFMEU led the march. The 
Civil Service Association, Miscellaneous Workers Union and others carried 
their banners.

Stephanie Mayman, Assistant Secretary of Unions WA was applauded for union 
efforts on behalf of airline workers. The meeting cheered when it was 
announced that the Federal Government had allocated $3.5 million to enable 
Sky West to be flying almost immediately.

Government shortchanges workers

Three hundred and fifty leaflets by the Communist Party were well received.

The Government, under pressure from the workers and their unions, waived 
the six-week waiting period for Ansett employees to receive unemployment 
benefits — the only catch being they must first resign from Ansett. If 
they resign then they lose the right to redundancy payments!

The Government's proposals for payment of entitlements (funded by a $10 tax 
on airline tickets) will leave most Ansett workers out of pocket by a large 
amount.

The Government has agreed to cover full payment for accrued annual leave 
and long service leave, but only up to eight weeks of redundancy pay.

Claims by Workplace Relations Minister Tony Abbott that the scheme will 
deliver 100 per cent of entitlements for 90 per cent of workers stretches 
the truth, said Chris White, Secretary of the United Trades and Labor 
Council of South Australia.

Long serving Ansett employees stand to lose anything up to $80,000 as 100 
weeks of redundancy pay is slashed to a maximum of eight weeks' said Mr 
White.

As a result of the political pressures caused by the succession of 
corporate collapses and the struggles of Ansett and other workers in the 
automotive industry (the strike at Tristar, for example), the Government 
has backed off its previous proposals for a Federal scheme where 
entitlements would be capped at $10,000 in the case of company failure.

The $10 levy on airline tickets will remain unless the Australian 
Government succeeds in recovering the monies from Air New Zealand. In this 
event, the proceeds of the levy will be "returned to the community".

Instead of coming out against privatisation, Labor leader Kim Beazley came 
up with the bright idea that the Ansett workers' entitlements could be paid 
from the pile of money to made from the sale of Sydney Airport.

He suggested that the facility, even with the gaping hole left by Ansett, 
would be worth "a motza".

It is doubtful that the airport with such a diminished capacity in present 
economic conditions would fetch earlier estimates of $4 billion.

Can Mr Beazley tell us what he would do if the privatised airport went bust 
and could not operate? This could easily have happened if it had been sold 
a few months ago. The consortia buying up public enterprises borrow 
anything up to 90 per cent of the purchase price, have heavy interest 
payments as well as expectations of fat profits.

Meanwhile Dick Smith wants the Federal Government to do more in the current 
situation to attack standards in the industry which were achieved and 
maintained by the trade union movement.

In a piece carried in the Murdoch press he said that he had been telling 
industry chiefs "that if the highly unionised, very expensive air traffic 
control and regulatory systems Australia has had in place since the 1940s 
remained, they simply wouldn't have a business in future".

Former Labor Prime Minister Bob Hawke's failure to follow through after 
breaking the pilots' union in 1989 had greatly disappointed him.

Finger of blame

While Dick Smith and others are happy to blame unions for all manner of 
ills in the industry, most of the media interest last week was focused on 
the apparent incompetence of the Ansett and Air New Zealand Management.

Questions need answering. Did Air New Zealand asset-strip Ansett? Did 
Ansett trade illegaly while insolvent? Did they fail to fully report their 
economic difficulties to the NZ stock exchange?

Should the finger be pointed at the recent owners of Ansett, Murdoch's News 
Limited and Sir Peter Abeles' TNT, for failing to update the fleet in time 
and leaving Ansett with the oldest planes among the top 50 airlines in the 
world?

The riskiness of ventures in the industry, the impact on safety standards 
and the inevitable disruption to the community and people's employment must 
cause the labour movement, in particular, to respond in a way which is in 
proportion to the problem.

Regardless of the specifics of the actions of the individuals involved, the 
real cause of this crisis is the capitalism system of private enterprise.

Our airports, our airlines, communications, banks, water, electricity and 
other essential services will never be reliable while privately owned and 
run for profit.

There will always be crashes and no security for workers.

Deregulation and privatisation have once again shown to be, quite 
literally, bankrupt. The labour movement, with the trade unions in the 
forefront, must organise to achieve a single publicly owned airline to meet 
community needs, not corporate greed.

The Government and the management of Ansett and Air New Zealand have a 
responsibility to see that no worker is left worse off as a consequence of 
this crash.