Organising Union: Transport Workers Face the Challenge of Change, 1989-2013 by Mark Hearn

Author:Mark Hearn [Hearn, Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Labor & Industrial Relations, Labor & Employment, Political Science, Law, General
ISBN: 9780522871265
Google: Ywh0DgAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 36202297
Publisher: Melbourne University Press
Published: 2017-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The TWU’s Christmas carol protest in 2006 for Ansett workers outside Kirribilli House. Dave Lupton in foreground, third from left. Photograph Oliver Strewe

As the former Ansett workers loudly carolled outside Kirribilli House, Sheldon told the media that ‘many Ansett workers faced a bleak Christmas and were waiting for the PM to honour his promise. We wish the Howard family all the best for Christmas; however, we would like to remind Mr Howard about how Ansett workers and their families are going to be spending their Christmas.’ Dave Lupton says: ‘I remember the first Christmas we were there. [Howard] came out and he asked us if we could please stop. He said, “I can’t put up with the singing any more.”’ The Ansett workers kept up the Christmas carol campaign for several years, including six TWU members dressed in Santa suits in December 2003 demanding— as well as singing—that the government guarantee that the Ansett workers would receive 100 per cent of their outstanding entitlements.32

The workers also maintained another vigil: sitting outside the Ansett terminal in Sydney for five months, a total of 172 days to draw public attention to their plight. ‘I missed one day,’ Dave Lupton recalls. ‘Right from the beginning, we realised that if we didn’t have people sitting outside that terminal, and we never had the day-to-day news story, [then] people would forget us, and before long we’d be lucky to get on the back page of the paper. So we had to keep the pressure on. The ACTU and TWU organised a van for us, so [whenever] we heard John Howard or Tony Abbott—he was the Industrial Relations Minister at the time—were going somewhere, we made sure we had someone in an Ansett T-shirt or a couple of people there so we could yell and scream.’33

Hopes dashed: The Tesna consortium

While the former Ansett workers waited for a payout of their entitlements, they experienced the torment of hopes raised and crushed. In December 2001 it seemed that Ansett Mark II would successfully take to the skies. The Tesna consortium, established by the Melbourne business moguls Solomon Lew and Lindsay Fox, briefly resurrected a much streamlined and stripped-down business, including lower wages for staff. The revived Ansett offered a prospect of work for at least some of the old Ansett staff, including Dave Lupton.34

Others found either casual or full-time work with Qantas or Virgin Blue, another emerging player in the airlines industry. Virgin Blue—rebadged as Virgin Australia in 2011—was another competitor that entered the domestic aviation market following industry deregulation, and proved a more enduring business than Compass. Part of the global corporate empire established by the British entrepreneur Richard Branson, Virgin Blue began Australian operations in August 2000, and found itself the second-largest Australian domestic airline following the Ansett collapse. While Qantas had more than 80 per cent market share following Ansett’s collapse, Virgin Blue’s low-cost model helped it to win a third of the domestic airline market within three years of Ansett’s demise.35 This was good

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