Qantas shares defied all odds this morning when they opened higher despite the on-going dispute with workers unions. Saturday morning Qantas CEO Alan Joyce took the drastic measure of grounding all Qantas flights as negotiations continued to stall. Over the last year the parties in question have met over 200 times and have still been unable to come to an agreement. Earlier today Fairwork Australia terminated action between Qantas and the unions giving the parties 3 weeks to come to an agreement with no industrial action taking place during the negotiations.
The Gillard government has come under-fire after it was revealed Qantas had warned the government it would have to ground flights if the dispute with unions was not resolved. ‘We wanted to end all industrial action because we were very concerned about the circumstances that had left Australians stranded,’my expectation now that industrial action has ceased is that they will get around a table and get this sorted,’ she said.
Despite the disruptions Alan Joyce remained confident Qantas would retain its market share; “I have every confidence that we will recover back to 65 per cent market share domestically,” Mr Joyce told reporters. “We will recover back to our international market share and, importantly, we’ll recover our market share of the corporate market.”
