The Australian Pilots Dispute in 1989

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The Australian Pilots Dispute in 1989
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The Australian Pilots Dispute in 1989
Disputes occur when two or more people are at loggerheads with each other. The
main reason is that they do not agree with a particular situation that is transpiring. Differences
are a common thing, and they form an integral part of our world (Ronfeldt,2011). As defined
by (Winter,2017). Disputes are disagreements that arise from the presence of two or more
different schools of thoughts in an official setting. Disputes can occur in different places,
including the workplace, at home, or even just on the road, which is mainly caused by the
diverse nature that human being has. Australia witnessed one such dispute. Surprisingly,
there has been minimal attempts to explicitly scrutinize the origin and the effects of the
dispute in the specific context of the domestic airline industry. It was when pilots took to
protest the long working hours that they were putting in, with an unproportional low wages
and the managerial control and the pilot's productivity were the underlying issues of the
disputes as well.
The 1989 Pilots strike was one great example of a dispute, which was one of the most
expensive and dramatic differences in Australian history; the strike had devastating effects.
The dispute which was led by the Australian Federation of air pilots came up after a long
period of disagreement mainly best on wage suppression. The dispute took effect and was
more prominently felt on 18th August 1989 (Lasslett, 2012). By this time pilots only worked
from 9 to 5. this was a massive blow to the economy of Australia since the country relies on
both imports and exports which were being delivered by air. this was later preceded by the
mass resignation of pilots. This prompted the government to cancel the pilot's award and to
de-recognized their Union. Further, the dispute was estimated to have costed the Australian
government over a billion dollars and resulted in the loss of thousands of jobs associated with
the demise of businesses. Despite the pay rise nearly 80% of the pilots did not get their jobs

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back. The dispute considerably interrupted domestic air travels and hurt the tourism industry
and other businesses.
The Australian Federation of air pilots had the school of thought that pilots, just like
any other workers, deserved to be treated equally. By this, the Union meant that pilots should
be given a specific number of working hours that is most preferably from 9 to 5. This is a
good argument because every individual deserves equal treatment from their employers and
the government (Blackham,2018)The strike started by pilots only reporting to work for their
specific timeframes and letter got to the point that pilots resigned from office. This was quite
strange given that the country much dependent on these pilots to transport goods or people,
including tourists from one destination to another in and out of Australia. With this growing
dispute, the Australian labor minister declared this as a national disaster and called upon the
services of The Royal Australian Air Force planes and pilots to fill in to avoid even further
losses. This made the employers seek alternative sources for employment and thus,
employers into getting pilots from overseas (Field & Lynch,2014).
The dispute was directly affected by the external business environment. The reason
for this is that the pilots, just like other workers, demanded better working conditions. These
pilots felt that all other workers in other different sectors hard flexible working hours and
working conditions unlike theirs. This meant that others had more time to be with their
families and friends while pilots spent most of the time at work. This is understandable as
every individual would like to spend as much time as possible with their loved ones.
As the dispute prolonged, it was also realized that the use of pilots from overseas
slowed down the country's economy as it made many people jobless. This created a dent in
the economy of the country for some period as many people were rendered jobless. As much