A silly jump to the left

As Madeleine Heffernan’s insightful article on the return of go-away money highlighted yesterday, industrial relations tension is rising in the business community.

One of the biggest IR flashpoints is the airline industry and specifically Qantas, where pilots, engineers and maintenance staff are in the middle of a bitter bargaining period over pay and conditions.

But the aircraft maintenance engineers made a major misstep in their campaign by threatening that right-handed maintenance workers would only work with their left hands in a bizarre form of industrial action.

Whoever came up with that idea needs their head examined.

Threatening to take a frivolous approach to something as important as aircraft safety is unbelievable at a time when the media has been full of stories about aircraft safety in the wake of the Tiger Airways grounding.

It’s even more ridiculous when unions have been accusing Qantas of taking short-cuts with safety.

The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association said only two engineers were told to use their left hands and says long experience on the job means they will be able to do the  job with either hand.

Surely the union must realise that even the slightest thought that passenger safety could be impacted will turn public opinion against them. Even a go-slow would be safer.

Qantas says the two engineers won’t be paid.

“The maintenance of Qantas aircraft should never be trivialised and Qantas will not tolerate this behaviour,” a spokesman told news.com.au.

“The action is potentially a safety risk to employees and passengers and sets a dangerous precedent for future industrial action.”

The union claims the Qantas refusal to pay the two employees represents a partial lockout and is talking tough.

Surely it’s time for someone to pull back, to find a form of industrial action that has nothing to do with safety issues.

On a lighter note, I wondered what the left-handed protest says about lefties in general.

Could an easily-offended lefty somehow infer that the union believes lefties are slower or inferior workers?

With that in mind I compiled a very quick list of five great left-handed entrepreneurs:

• Henry Ford. The father of the mass market automobile – and modern vehicle production – was a noted left-hander.
• Bill Gates. Was the Microsoft founder’s creativity linked to his left-handedness?
• Oprah Winfrey. The multi-media megastar has just signed off on the purchase of a cable television channel in the US.
• Nelson Rockefeller. The former US vice president was a leader of his famous family’s banking and oil businesses.
• Ned Flanders.  The well known character on The Simpsons famously opened a shop for left-handers called The Leftorium. It went bust on the show but lives on in real life.