Lads, if any of you or your freinds, family are interested in construction site foreman and manager jobs in Australia - go onto Linked in and join the Irish Professionals In Australia group.
There’s an ad there for such a job, paying 140-170 euros + relocation + family visa. Interviewing in Dublin in November.
any of ye following the Qantas story?
Alan Joyce, he of the horrible Dub/Aus accent been pretty brave and shutdown the airline there yesterday. Cue predictable send him back to Ireland type of reports.
Brave decision for him to take. Some of the Qantas unions were working on go slows and stuff for the last while bleeding the airline dry so he pulls the plug and locks them out. Huge news over here this story. The ‘Flying Kangaroo’ is a national icon and the company is still hugely profitable I was surprised to read at weekend but the share price is tanking badly. The high AUD has hit tourism here, they were slow to get into the Asian market by all accounts, Joyce apparently made a bad decision buying the wrong type of plane and not new more fuel efficient ones, oil prices being high has hit all airlines too.
His gamble seems to have worked. Fair Work Australia, I guess the Aus version of the LRC have ordered that the Qantas industrial action be terminated at 2am last night. Joyce was looking for this at a minimum to stop the lockout. With a minority govt on very shaky ground led by the union supported Labor party, action was always going to be swift I guess. Qantas and the unions have 21 days now to come to an ageement or the FWA will rule on the dispute and make a binding decision.
Ballsy move from Joyce certainly. The airline was apparently going to lose 20m Aud for each day he locked out employees. which was only 2 days as it turns out. His board and the market are supporting him. Qantas with a dangerously low share price could be in hostile takeover territory but I think the call to nationalise the airline isnt a runner and I cant see what other airline would be that interested.
I think this is a bigger issue though than just Qantas. I remember a similar type of dispute back in the Ponzi days in Ireland when Irish Ferries felt they couldnt compete anymore with their competitors due to them having a higher cost base. Qantas have the same argument now. It is clear all of Australia isnt benefitting from the current boom - tourism, retail and many other industries in trouble.
Qantas may be profitable, but like the economy, its two speed, domestically very profitable, but losing $150 mil on their international business last year. So Joyce’s long term plan for the company is the right way to go, but the way he’s doing it is utterly stupid. The unions have known for a long time that serious action has to be taken at Qantas and if Joyce had sat down with them at the start and negotiated honestly, he’d have them onside. Instead he’s got a feral workforce offside, a very very pissed off government and PM today and untold damage to the brand. Australian’s have this weird, frankly silly, attitude to national icons and they seem to think that an airline is one. So fucking with the brand and a workforce who can easily pull the nationalistic line was a bit stupid. Joyce just looks like a cunt today and this whole issue won’t be resolved for a long time, no matter what Fair Work decide.
Of course, he could be doing the bidding of his predecessor Geoff Dixon and positioning the company for a takeover or private equity buy.
The fact is though that I won’t get to meet the Irish Int Rules team now at Terrigal because of Alan Joyce and for that I’m pissed off.
Ah but Fitzy the airline was losing customers as regular business travellers such as you or I couldnt take a risk with them of late due to the go slows. I havent been following the ongoing dispute closely but hasnt he been negotiating with the unions for some time? Only 3 of the 15 unions didnt agree to his proposals.
I like poker plays and Joyce’s all in hand here to shut the airline was impressive.
Might be a touch of he has won this battle but the war goes on maybe. He is still taking home an impressive wage for his stint in charge despite the collapse in the share price during his tenure. The Qantas Pilots union aint short of money either if the amount of advertising they have blitzed across the motorways and on the TV is anything to go by.
I’m not sure how affected the brand will be. Aussies are tied to their brands more than those at home alright but they are becoming more price conscious too. As long as their service is reliable, they will clean up on the domestic routes. Not sure why they offer dinners and things like that on flights to Cairns reckon they could be even more profitable domestically.
great to see 2 dubliners & ex aer lingus employees in charge of huge airlines & standing up to the unions
a great relection on aviation in Dublin
are you a giddy schoolgirl ?? who the fuck goes out of their way to meet “sportspeople”
I think, from anecdotal evidence and from listening to talk shows, that his salary is a massive issue for people. For the more xenophobic and less educated the fact he’s Irish is an issue too, but for most sound minded Aussies his salary is an issue and it wouldn’t matter who he was or where he came from.
He did the right thing here though, the Unions were taking the piss, they are already one of the best paid work forces in the Airline industry in the whole world. His big mistake has been not paying dividends for 5 years and blowing on about how good a job he’d done and how much money they made last year.
His changing of accent though is enough for him to have his balls cut off.
None of this gets away from the fact that Aussies are cunts. A sweeping generalisation i know, but they are.
Aussies and Jews. Persona(e) non grata for Kev.
Israeli’s KIB, have yet to meet a decent one. Met plenty decent Jews.
I have to admit i am struggling with Australians. Lots of people seem to be. Its probably worse for people who absolutely had to leave Ireland as well. Too many stories with Irish-Aussie spats for it to be just a drink thing. Some problems in the mining i believe, and plenty money/exploitation issues.
My own issues with them are slightly different, but i can’t take to the vast majority.
jesus that Australian accent is horrendous, just heard that bint of a prime minister on the news there
So Israeli’s and Australians. Bout 30m people there you are writing off.
I dont think being a ‘cunt’ is national specific and I’m someone who pretty much had to leave Ireland not that it has anything to do with it.
of course some aussies are cunts and there are some who dont like foreigners coming in. I seem to recall some Irish who had problems with the Polskis et al coming in too. there was numerous cases there of exploitation etc. The US and the UK - welcoming societies to all, I think not.
at the end of the day, this country is providing employment for thousands of Irish people whose nation effectively turned it back on to bail out developers and bankers. a load of Irish people are doing very well for themselves here and enjoying a quality of life that they simply wouldnt have at home. It isnt to everyone’s taste and Aus isnt some utopian society. But where is? Nowhere I’m afraid.
If the issues you have ‘with them’ are too much head back to Cark and change your profile pic.
she is an awful looking and sounding yoke alright. made a minister out of her ex boyfriend too (he was married at the time they were shagging). I much preferred when rudd was in charge. He was standing up to the mining companies, was promoting the national broadband network, more investment in other infrastructure etc. Not sure what Gillard’s vision is, being in power I suppose.
What has my pic got to do with it?
your point on developers and banks has nothing at all to do with my point either.
i have found aussies really dishonest, sneaky, racist, xenophobic in the extreme and very untrustworthy. They constantly try to under pay and dock hours etc. The most disturbing thing thats developing in their society is them wanting the public to “dob in” people for all sorts of reasons, and rewarding it with 1-3K if the person is prosecuted. What kind of shit is that?
I’ll give Melbourne a whirl in a couple of months and then its off to Canada. I wouldn’t dream of staying here long term. All this place has to me is reasonable weather and good sport and leisure structures.
The US is a far more welcoming country in my experience. Notwithstanding the fact it’s still got some serious issues.
What about the soaps Kev? You can’t just write off the soaps like that.
i doubt that he changed his accent intentionally
Of course he has TASE, it was only a couple of months ago i got a shock when he started talking on the news, i had no idea who he was or an Irish man was in charge of the Airline, and this thick Dub accent was coming over the sound system. In the last few weeks his voice has changed dramatically. Almost a bit Jim Stynes like i suppose now, someone who has been gone for years, still traces of the Dub, but not much. The fact he was being mocked in the press has to have had an affect on him and its rumored he was “advised” to change his speech.
still find it hard to believe - he is the head guy there so who would he listen to that would make him change his accent, shareholders staff etc wouldnt give a fuck- PR people perhaps but as he isnt really in the media it shouldnt matter what he sounds like,
he has suffered xenophobic abuse from the mainstream media though & there is a bit of anti Irishness in oz, your average oz person would come out with anti irish jokes - odd as they are fairly subservant to the brits
Ya, there is anti irish feeling, but its aimed at pretty much everyone really not just us. I have seen jobs with “No Poms need apply”. Your average Aussie is even more uneducated about Ireland than the yanks at this stage, but with the yanks its just a bit of silly ignorance and they tend to want to find out. But these people feel genuinely superior to us, and the thing is, they are the thickest race i’ve ever come across. But i have to try and not sound or feel superior to them, even if thats hard sometimes. 
By the way, where does the anti-English efeling come from, its very hard to understand,s eeing as they are more like the Brits than anyone else.
They have a massively unbalanced view of their standing in the world as well, and love lining themselves up alongside the US.
The main thing about them though, and this is contradictory and i should have worded it differently, is that they don’t erally feel superior at all in ways, and just “act” that way. I find it amusing how actually insecure the men in particular are. They are always trying to prove something.
This again may be an obvious point, and probably common to most countries and people, but the ones you meet who have travelled are generally a bit more aware of us, although very few of them actually go to Ireland unless they have a direct connection with the place.