
Issue No 111		14 September 2001

LaborNET	Ask Neale	Tool of the Week

Tool Shed

Come Fly With Me

Gary Toomey, the only man to be charged for carrying extra baggage when travelling without a suitcase, has crashed Ansett into the Tool Shed.

*****************

The Air New Zealand chief has proven to be the living proof of the age old adage - 'if you want to help a New Zealander set up a small business, give him a big one and come back in six months'. As 16000 Ansett workers sweat on their jobs and their entitlements, they are looking across the Tasman to see where it all went wrong. All roads seem to lead to the big prop-forward.

Rugby lovers know props are big and slow, their only contribution their ability to hold up the scrum. Ansett workers have discovered that Toomey is just as big and slow - except when it comes to escaping from boards that have anything to do with the airline he has led to destruction. As thousands of workers try to pick up their lives and many more just try to get home, the evidence is building that this was an act of corporate terrorism.

So what went wrong? It's a heady mix of a New Zealand company aiming too high and a government that just didn't care. Desperate to win something from Australia, Air New Zealand gobbled up Ansett the minute Howard Government relaxed foreign control limits. The former News Ltd and TNT asset already laboured under a run-down fleet, but combine this with rising oil prices and a falling Aussie dollar and things were always going to be tough. Then came the safety scares, followed by the millions spent on cheesy adverts with second rate celebrities telling people they were 'absolutely' committed to Ansett.

Only problem was Toomey wasn't - and had already begun a global search to unload the company. His pleas fell on dead ears in Auckland and Canberra - where the Minister for Transport had already decided that Qantas should be the sole national carrier - creating the bizarre shift in a decade of public policy from enjoying a public carrier and a private carrier, to two private carriers, to a sole monopolistic carrier. Pure genius. Attempts by Singapore Airlines to bale Ansett out were resisted by governments on both sides of the Tasman, for what now appear supiciously xenophobic reasons - everyone wanted sovereignty.

Now we have a workforce facing oblivion, Toomey's latest in a string of innovative labour relations initiatives. When at Qantas he introduced competitive tendering at airports, making staff submit bids to keep their jobs against other bidders. The aim of course was to cut jobs and wages and conditions. However today there are more people working at airports for Qantas than ever before and no wages or conditions were lost. When he announced that the staff bid was successful, he expected them to be happy about it and could not understand the angry attitude of his staff.

Toomey is also understood to have had a satellite tracking device installed in his car at a cost of millions when at Qantas, at the company's cost of course. This is because he was so hard to spot in a crowd. Hopefully third device is still working, as Ansett workers begin their chase for millions in unpaid entitlements which the Kiwi bosses are claiming are "someone else's problem"

It was only after Toomey made the move to Air New Zealand and was in charge that they made the decision to increase their ownership of Ansett to 100 per cent. This was at a time when just about everyone else in the industry felt that there was no way Air New Zealand could afford the investment required to revive Ansett's fortunes. But with 49 per cent, Big Gazza wanted it all.

The rest they say is history, although farce could be a better word. Through it all, Toomey's only obvious talent has been to sweat when under pressure. Now he's looking like drowning in the puddle

*********************

But the final word comes from this entry on e-bay - the online auction site:

For Urgent Sale! Ansett Airlines of Australia (comes with free set of Ginsu Kitchen Knives)

This unique product comes with 65 years worth of safe, reliable aviation history. It has a large if ageing fleet, many capable workers, strong brand recognition throughout the Australasian region and 64 years of mainly profitable operation. Please Buy it.

Postage is $2.25

Created and run by Reginal Ansett for its first 45 years, it has recently fallen on tough times, hence the need to sell it 'urgent'.

In 1964 Ansett introduced Australias first jetliner, the 727. In 1969 it achieved the status of Australias largest Domestic Airline.

In 1979 it fell under the control of that lovable eccentric, Sir Peter 'I'm a Teapot' Abeles, and Rupert 'Asset Stripper' Murdoch's News Corp. Abeles proved a less than capable CEO, with a range of strange and peculiar asset purchases (and subsequent loss making sales).

In 1994 Ansett purchased several not-so-young 747 'Space Ships'. To the dissapointment of little boys everywhere these proved incapable of actually flying into space and in fact barely flew much higher than 40,000 feet. These aircraft are flying to this day (usually without maintenance) and have proved to be faithful and reliable Flagship members of the Ansett Fleet. (Ok...so perhaps not all THAT reliable, but better than those 767s)

16 years of somewhat vague ownership left Ansett totally in the hands of News Corp, not known for its airline expertise and apparently suffering from the perception that Airplanes only need replacing every 30 years or 50billion kilometers (whichever comes first). Subsequent analysis of News Corps capabilities has shown that if they had been owners of Ansett from 1936 then Tiger Moths would still have formed the majority of its fleet in the 1980s. In 1998, having discovered that running an airline actually required SOME expertise as well the unpleasant spending of money for new aircraft, News Corp sold 50% of its share to a bunch of slack-jawed yokels all called Dwayne, we now know them as Air New Zealand ( or Air New Zulund if you prefer the phonetic spelling).

In 2000 the remaining shares of Ansett became available for sale, AirNZ responded by breaking into its piggy bank AND the money for the Gas Meter so that it could exercise its option and purchase the rest of Ansett, despite the desire of Singapore Airlines to buy into Ansett at the same times. The Chairman of AirNZ Sir Selwyn Cushing, presumably bewitched by delusions of world aviation domination, thereby purchased an airline operation larger than itself, saddled with an ageing fleet, and with only $2.74 left in the bank (NZ Dollars too!) to run the entire group. Still, looks good on the Resume, doesn't in Sel?

Lacking foresight (or the use of a Tardis) this ensured a weaking and unsuspecting Ansett ran into its toughest year ever, with multiple competion from Richard 'Grinning Idiot' Bransons Virgin Blue and Gerry 'Here, have some of my investors money' McGowan's Impulse Airlines, combined with the Barrel Price of Oil hitting 2 Zillion dollars, this led to Ansett failing to make a profit and indeed losing over a million dollars a day in operating costs by the end of August 2001.

Part of its AirNZs failure was due to it...

a/ Sacking the people who knew how to run Ansett as soon as they could, so they could be replaced with Dunedin Sheep Farmers

b/ A flood of Kiwis, desperate to leave, flooding to Ansetts head office, whilst the occasional Aussie went the other way in a 2000-1 ratio

c/ Helen 'PixieAnn Wheatley' Clark's Goverment (and I use the term loosley) being unable to make more than one decision per decade, which they were apparently waiting until 2008 before using. (not that they'll be there then). Mind you, we are talking about a Prime Minister who dismantled her countrys Airforce and replaced with a couple of Armoured Cars (One of them even has a gun.. next year they buy a bullet for it).

d/ A Board of Directors who, once actually having purchased an Airline larger than itself , found themselves unable to do anything further to run it other than wander around boardrooms, bumping into walls, and making low, mooing noises.

e/ An Acting Chairman (and thats a description, not a title) in Jim Farmer who's is so deeply short sighted and parochial that when quizzed about responsibility about Ansetts debts, responded with 'Ansett? Isn't that an Australian Airline' (or words to that effect).

f/ A maintenence system that had been 'restructured' to the point that critical decision making responsibilitys were being placed on single individuals.... the term 'crosschecking' being apparently unknown (But then its parent airline DOES have a habit of accidently smacking aircraft into inconveniently located mountains every 10 years or so).

g/ A dubious advertising campain involving about 7 'celebrities' (2/3rds of them unknown to 99% of the Australian Public) and the rhetorically ludicrous 'Absolutely' tag. The ads were later used for Trivia 'spot that obscure C-grade celeb' competitions. At least the final slogan overcame the NZ preferred alternative - 'Ansett, she's choice, eh?'

h/ An IT department incapable of actually giving someone proper access to any given system within 6 months of their initial application. Actually thats a lie, it once took me only 4 weeks and 27 phone calls to get someone access to the Reservations System... lightning quick don't you think?

i/ Just plain inertia and ignorance

All bid's are welcome at: http://cgi.ebay.com.au/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1005008246

Nominate a Tool!

View entire issue - print all of the articles!

Issue 111 contents

Interview: Amidst the Debris
ACTU President Sharan Burrow surveys the wreckage from a week that rocked the world.

Politics: Consequences of Empire
The horror of the events in New York has not led to all American and international observers feeling committed to bloody revenge.

Industrial: Grounded
Ansett workers lay bare their feelings at seeing their company driven into oblivion.

International: Election Results from East Timor
Fretelin as expected has topped the poll in East Timor�s first free democratic election and the violence predicted by some has not eventuated.

E-Change: 3.2 The Electronic Consumerist
In their latest instalment Peter Lewis and Michael Gadiel ask how effective has the law become in safeguarding the things that really matter to us?

Legal: Howard's Falkland War
Zoe Reynolds chronicles the bizarre tale of the Tampa and how a group of refugees bacame pawns in a bigger political game.

Compo: Round Two Begins
Nancy Searle reviews the Sheahan Report and highlights some of the areas of concern to injured workers.

Economics: Knowledge, Power, Banking
Raj Patel questions whether a new World Bank initiative is actually designed to control the way the Third World thinks.

Review: Political Theatre
The Naked Theatre Company is a youthful, adventurous, professional, Sydney theatre company committed to the development and production of Australian playwrights.

Satire: Howard US Visit "Marginally Overshadowed"
Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said his US trip was a complete success, if slightly upstaged towards the middle.

» Howard Deserts Ansett Workers

» Trans Tasman Battle for Entitlements

» Qantas Workers Move To Protect Their Entitlements

» Unions Denounce Muslim Attacks

» Fund Established for New York Workers

» Australian Unionist Lost in New York

» US Flight Crews Support Ansett Workers

» Compo: Threshold Too High

» Della Moves on Premium Evasion

» Travel Site Severs Burma Links

» Paint Company Wants Strike Declared Illegal

» Casino Staff Locked Out Again

» Tax Staff to Strike Back

» Union Applauds Deet Ruling On Clothing

» Unions Take Message to Migrant Workers

» Get Ready to Wobble

» Activists' Notebook

» STOP PRESS: Howard Rolls Abbott on Entitlements