[Peetwo]

Bureaucratalia & the 6D aviation shame list - Part III

Nicely caught by Gobbles...

Race to the bottom continues? This time it's Ground Handling...

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-20...me/8369814

Airport staff sleeping at work say they cannot afford to go home

7.30 BY JAMES THOMAS AND XANTHE KLEINIG
UPDATED MON MAR 20 19:37:31

Staff at one of Australia's busiest airports have been setting up camp and sleeping at work, which they say is because they cannot afford to go home between shifts.

Key points:

- Secret video shows makeshift beds where airport staff are sleeping under terminals
- Workers say split shifts mean it is not worth going home
- Employers defend safety record and reject accusations of poor treatment
- Secret footage obtained exclusively by 7.30 revealed bed rolls and dirty sheets next to the baggage carousel in the staff-only area of Sydney Airport's international terminal.

Napping between shifts is a result of the "Americanisation" of the Australian workforce, according to the Transport Workers Union (TWU).

Split shifts that start early and finish late and limited guaranteed hours mean it is not worth workers' while — financially or timewise — to return home when they are rostered off, according to the union.

Workers have voiced concerns that fatigue levels are putting safety at risk.

'We end up sleeping under the terminal'

Driver George Orsaris believes he will lose his job for speaking with 7.30, but wants to expose working conditions at his employer, Aerocare.

"We get pushed to our limits. Our pay doesn't match it. We don't get rest breaks and we get given a four-hour shift in the morning and then we have a four-or-five-hour break and get a four-hour shift in the afternoon," he said.

"It is barely enough time to sleep by the time you get home, get up and have to go to work again. So we end up sleeping under the terminal where all the baggage goes between."

Most of Aerocare's workers are permanent, part-time with a guaranteed minimum salary of about $16,000 per year under a collective agreement approved by Fair Work in 2012.

TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon said the company sought to "game the system" in the pursuit of profits by keeping workers "hungry" for shifts, despite the long breaks in between.

"Quite clearly, these agreements are deficient, they are unethical," he said.

"When you are getting paid below the poverty line, when you can't raise a family on these incomes and the company clearly knows that having them part-time is starving the workforce into submission.

Workers raise safety concerns

Aerocare workers have told 7.30 they were concerned fatigue had contributed to two safety incidents.

In November 2014 in Brisbane, a Tiger Air cargo door was left open but discovered before take-off. Mr Orsaris said lives could have been at risk.

"If it was missed and the plane was to take off down the runway, I'd hate to think what would happen," Mr Orsaris said.

Aerocare said the safety of crew, passengers and ground staff was never at risk.

The company's chief executive, Glenn Rutherford, said in a statement he was concerned about "any allegations of system deficiency" and would further investigate any claims.

"We want to ensure it is on record that in 22 years, and despite handling over a million flights, Aerocare has never been penalised for a safety issue," he said.

Aerocare rejects accusations of 'poor treatment'. Aerocare said it provided full-time positions wherever possible, but that its rostering was to a large extent determined by the airlines' flight schedules.

It said 97 per cent of employees voted in favour of the current enterprise bargaining agreement.

"Aerocare strongly refutes any allegations or assertions … inferring poor treatment or under-payment of its employees," a spokesman said.
The company said it provided better job security and working conditions than many of its competitors and had committed to increasing pay rates by 5 per cent across the board.

"Aerocare has invested millions of dollars to improve the quality of its rostering so as to maximise the duration of shifts, with the goal of securing more contracts which would enable Aerocare to offer employees longer shifts and further viable full-time positions," the spokesman said.

Aerocare's most recent financial statement to the corporate regulator showed net profits were up more than 20 per cent to $13.5 million in the 2016 financial year.

Mr Sheldon said that other companies were now replicating the wages and conditions of workers at Aerocare, which is owned by private equity firm Archer Capital.

"We've seen the Americanisation of the Australian workforce in the aviation industry and yet we've seen executive bonuses increase, we've seen airport profits in the billions and this future is really something that beholds for everybody across the Australian workforce," he said.

 ....................................................

No great surprise. Greedy airlines are driving a hard line and happy to farm out services such as ground handling to the cheapest bidder. Mind you, Rutherford and Shelley have made millions out of Aeroscare ground handling. Both bought multi million dollar pads in Sydney within the same circle as knobs like Goldman Sachs Turdball and others, so those two muppets certainly aren't sleeping under stairs and eating beans on toast for dinner.

As for fatigue, damn straight. Staff sleeping between shifts under stairs, same staff who are headsetting aircraft, operating GSE on the aircraft, doing load control of aircraft. Hmmmm, no risk ya reckon??

Tick Tock

In a follow up to the 730 Report segment on the troubling and confronting workplace conditions at Aerocare, I note that miniscule 4D was dragged into a bollocks political point scoring Shortone QWN in the HoR question time today:

Mr SHORTEN (Maribyrnong—Leader of the Opposition) (14:24): My question is to the Prime Minister. The ABC has today revealed that workers at Sydney airport are sleeping rough between shifts in their own workplace because they cannot afford to go home between their shifts. When there are real problems like this, why is the Prime Minister's priority today weakening protections against racist hate speech and ignoring workers like this who are suffering?

Mr TURNBULL (Wentworth—Prime Minister) (14:25): My government is focused on delivering the strong economic growth that Australians seek and securing their energy future, on ensuring that the opportunities for our children and grandchildren are even greater than those that we have had. That is our objective and that is what we are delivering. What Labor focus on is one ideological agenda after another, whether it is undermining our energy security or seeking to engage in an anti-business campaign the likes of which we have not seen for several generations.

Only yesterday we heard the Leader of the Opposition defending his track record as a Labor leader, as a union leader. His shadow Attorney-General said how proud they all were of his leadership, of all of the workers he sold down the river, of all the penalty rate deals he did, of all of the payments that came back to the Australian Workers Union, carefully documented in the royal commission and not exposed.

Mr Bowen: It's happening on your watch!

Mr TURNBULL: I thought the member was defending the Leader of the Opposition there. I thought—

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition, on a point of order?

Mr Shorten: On relevance. I asked about the scandal at Sydney airport right now, today. What are you doing about these workers, Prime Minister?

The SPEAKER: The Leader of the Opposition will resume his seat. The Prime Minister has the call.

Mr TURNBULL: I will ask the minister for transport to address the issue at Sydney airport.

Mr CHESTER (Gippsland—Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) (14:27): I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to clarify the record in relation to the incidents referred to by the Leader of the Opposition. On this side of the House we take aviation safety very seriously and we are proud of Australia's enviable safety record. My office this morning has sought some assurances in relation to the reports that were in the media last night and again this morning. I am aware of concerns that were raised in relation to operations by Aerocare, which is an Australian ground handling company working for many of the major airlines at our major airports.

There are a range of mechanisms in place in relation to aviation safety systems, where anyone who is concerned about any safety issues can raise those issues with our safety investigators or the regulatory agencies. These include the ability to make confidential reports directly to the ATSB, which is the Australian aviation safety investigator. I would encourage anyone with genuine concerns in relation to those matters to raise those concerns with our airports, to use those reporting mechanisms.

Opposition members interjecting—

Mr CHESTER: I hear those opposite interjecting. It is irresponsible to make allegations without going through the process of actually making those reports known to the safety investigator, being the ATSB. It is typical of Labor to be seeking to scare the Australian travelling public rather than going through the proper processes. I emphasise again that on this side of the House we take aviation safety— (Time expired)

  
Note how this NFI miniscule remains eternally attached to the umbilical chord of the mystique of aviation safety, which is being consistently pedalled by the self-serving M&M and his minon spin doctors - FDS!

It still baffles me how 6D actually believes that the ATSB is some fearless, truly independent transport safety watchdog, that has the ability and power to get to the bottom of scurrilous tales of aviation safety risk and innuendo. Especially when it was highlighted in the 730 Report that the ATSB was doing everything to abrogate their responsibility to investigate anything to do with the suggested Aerocare safety issues....

Extract from 730 transcript of Aerocare segment: 

JAMES THOMAS: He believes conditions at Aerocare, and fatigue levels, are so bad, travellers are at risk.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We could cause a serious accident. We could cause possible harm and damage to airline or people travelling on that airline.

JAMES THOMAS: The workers cite a number of instances. In 2015, a wheelchair lift that looks like this was driven into a bridge by an Aerocare worker. Snapped in half, this is what was left.

On the 28th of November, 2014, at Brisbane Domestic Airport, an Aerocare team had begun pushing back a fully-loaded Tigerair A320 in preparation for take-off, with one crucial problem - the cargo door was still wide open.

GEORGE ORSARIS: Word gets spread around quite quickly that Aerocare boys left the cargo door open on pushback.

JAMES THOMAS: As the plane was being pushed towards the runway, the open door was detected by the plane's crew and air-traffic control. The take-off was aborted.

GEORGE ORSARIS: If it was missed and the plane was to take off down the runway, I'd hate to think what would happen. It's extremely serious.

JAMES THOMAS: Tigerair says it did report the incident to the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. Three days ago, the bureau told 7.30 the incident wasn't a safety matter because the door was closed, just not locked.

But today, the bureau backtracked, conceding the door was open. It said there was no need, however, to investigate further because the problem was detected before take-off.

The Aerocare workers we spoke to strongly disagree with the safety bureau's assessment.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2, FORMER AEROCARE WORKER: They would have fallen out of the sky.

JAMES THOMAS: That serious?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: Yes.

JAMES THOMAS: Fearing repercussions, this former Aerocare worker asked us to obscure his identity. How did we get to a situation where a plane was getting pushed back with a cargo door open?

UNIDENTIFIED MAN 2: If someone said to me fatigue, exhaustion, it would not surprise me one bit.

   
MTF...P2


Ps Sometimes the bare Hansard actually inflates the importance and masks the actual poor delivery of the message. Such was the case with miniscule 6D's contribution today.

So for the record here is a clear example of how ineffectual 6D truly is and why he is really only Barnaby's photogenic filter: