1. Introduction

Employee Relations aim to maintain the relationships between the employer and the employee, which can make satisfactory productivity for the company. Essentially, the purpose of the Employee Relations is to prevent and resolve problems for individuals which affect the workplace. In this essay, I will analysis the 2011 Qantas dispute, and then give out the conclusion of my own thoughts. As we all know, this dispute happened basically, because the disagreement of the pay and working condition between the Qantas management and the three main Qantas unions, which lead to a large loss of the Qantas.

2. Main body

In this part, I will give out the main reasons of this dispute, and then give some recommendations to the management and the three unions to rebuild the employment relationships

2.1. The reasons of the dispute of Qantas

In the dispute of Qantas, the three unions include representing pilots, engineers and ground staff. Essentially, they all fights with the same battle, which is about their conditions of service and pay and the costs cut of the Qantas management. This is the main reason of this dispute, which lead to many Strikes in Qantas before the 2011 Qantas dispute.

On the other hand, this world is a globalizing world. Therefore the management of Qantas said” it is impossible for a private company, such as Qantas, to guarantee job security”. Qantas want to change its international airline to get more profit, so it needs to fire a number of workers, which lead to the large scale Strike. This is another reason to the dispute.

2.2 How can they rebuild the employment relations?

As I have learnt the reasons which lead to the dispute of Qantas, then I need to give out some recommendations to the employment relations. It is important for the management and the three unions to try to rebuild the relations between the staff and Qantas. 

Good attitude

Alan Joyce, the CEO of Qantas, provides “olive branch” to the employee who thinks that he is using the “double standards”, which means that Joyce treat the staff unfairly. After this, he offers an increasing pay to the employees, which means a new form of management with justice, trust and democracy in their company.

Listen to the staff

We learn from the dispute, Qantas has met the economic problems. In fact, they can tell this problem to the staff. I think that the staff is willing to face the problem together with Qantas. They can work together with the management by their own ways to resolve economic problems. They give great service to consumers. If they do not know the problem, they still strike to Qantas. As a result, they must treat the customers receive poor with service. Therefore, the management need to tell the truth to the staff, and listen to their advice to help the company.

Innovation of the management

Qantas needs to innovate some of its management strategies to make a good employment relationships between the management and three unions. For example, they can learn some new managing strategies from other airline, which can give a refresh to its own company. The management can give a voice to staff to know what they are longing for from their work. and the leader also can learn how to motivate worker by some useful ways, besides the high salary and good work conditions.

3. Conclusion

According to the above information, I believe that Qantas must make good employment relations with the workers, and Qantas still need to serve the employees with good work conditions and well pays. The employees also need to make a well work performance to Qantas. No one can guarantee a life work for them. They need to work hard in the competitive marketing. Therefore, they will have a good cooperation in the future.