Incoming Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson given stern warning by Transport Workers Union boss Michael Kaine   
With Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce set to step down, the airline’s incoming boss has been officially put on notice by a major union figure.


News.com.au
May 16, 2023

A major national transport union has issued a stern warning to incoming Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson, who will replace current airline boss Alan Joyce in November.   

Mr Joyce, who first became chief executive in 2002, was a recurring target for the Transport Workers Union’s national secretary Michael Kaine on Tuesday as he delivered the keynote address at the annual National Council.

While Mr Kaine welcomed Qantas’ change in management, he said the aviation industry had been “destroyed by unchecked corporate greed” and was ready to “fight back”.

“It’s encouraging that Qantas has a new CEO in Vanessa Hudson and I hope she will work with us to repair the damage that Alan Joyce has done over the past 15 years,” he said.

“But we won’t wait to find out if she possesses the decency and common sense required to put workers at the centre of the desperately needed reconstruction of Qantas.”

The TWU has consistently blamed Mr Joyce for the casualisation of aviation workers, outsourcing jobs and stymieing wages.

Vanessa Hudson will become Qantas’ chief executive.

Mr Kaine also put airline bosses on notice and announced the TWU would make an application to “significantly lift” pay and working conditions for people in the airline industry, including pursuing “multi-employer bargaining when the time comes”.

“We will meet the race to the bottom on wages by lifting the floor,” Mr Kaine said.

“This is just the beginning. Reversing 15 years of cumulative attacks on workers from a callous Qantas management team will take time, but councillors, if the TWU is known for anything, it is for our relentlessness.”


The TWU has been vocal in condemning Qantas’ decision to seek a High Court appeal of two rulings that found its decision to outsource 1700 baggage handlers at 10 airports amid the pandemic was unlawful.


The airline has argued it needed to make “significant changes” due to a $25bn loss in revenue during this time.

Prior to the first hearing earlier this month, Mr Kaine said the decision was an example of the “human toll of this cruel, cruel (Alan) Joyce administration”.

“They’re going to try and overturn two decisions of the Federal Court, one from the full Federal Court that said that 1700 workers represented here … were illegally sacked so that Qantas did not have to bargain with them and did not have to face the prospect of those workers exercising their workplace right to take protected industrial action,” he said.