On Saturday Dec 3rd 610 people and 6 trade unions from around the country distributed over 208,000 Qantas Families flyers to people in their neighbourhood. The day was a huge success and everyone involved should congratulate themselves for standing up as a voice for a future for quality Australian jobs for the aviation industry.

This groundswell shows that the Australian community cares about:

- saving our aviation industry from outsourcing and offshoring

- we are a nation of travellers and we deserve a strong national airline industry

So many of you have signed the petition to say this very thing but we urge more of you to do so and to send the petition to your family and friends:  www.qantasfamilies.com/petition

Boeing suit settlement stirs jetliner air safety debate. Documents show firm long concerned about health risks of rare fume events (MSNBC.com) 

A former flight attendant is believed to be the first person in the U.S. to settle a lawsuit against the Boeing Co. over what she claims is faulty aircraft design that allowed toxic fumes to reach the cabin, triggering tremors, memory loss and severe headaches.

The amount and other details of the settlement Wednesday between former American Airlines worker Terry Williams, a 42-year-old mother of two, and Boeing were not made public as a condition of the agreement.

But 250,000 pages of company documents turned over to the plaintiff's legal team by Boeing seem certain to fuel the long-running battle over the safety of cabin air in commercial jetliners.

Read complete article in MSNBC.com

The ITF has condemned tactics employed by the executive board of Kuwait Airways to delay agreement on a settlement for the company’s workers.

Workers represented by the ITF-affiliated Kuwait Airways Workers’ Union had reached a tentative settlement earlier this month, giving them the same benefits as other public sector workers; the airline is currently state-owned, but privatisation is looming.

However, the ITF has since learned that, after a 10-day negotiating period, the executive board of the airline has rejected outright a proposal put forward by the union without even reading it.

In a letter dated 20 October to Kuwait’s prime minister, Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, ITF general secretary David Cockroft stated: “It is difficult to see this as anything other than deliberate obstructionism, taking advantage of the pending privatisation of the enterprise.”

He urged the government and its ministry of transport to act to ensure that the matter was settled. He said: “It is no surprise that the union itself has lost confidence in the management and instead is looking to your government for the decisive action that the executive board seems unwilling to take. The ITF can only share their concern, and call upon the government of Kuwait to again involve itself in search of a satisfactory solution.”

The ITF has condemned tactics employed by the executive board of Kuwait Airways to delay agreement on a settlement for the company’s workers.

Workers represented by the ITF-affiliated Kuwait Airways Workers’ Union had reached a tentative settlement earlier this month, giving them the same benefits as other public sector workers; the airline is currently state-owned, but privatisation is looming.

However, the ITF has since learned that, after a 10-day negotiating period, the executive board of the airline has rejected outright a proposal put forward by the union without even reading it.

In a letter dated 20 October to Kuwait’s prime minister, Nasser Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, ITF general secretary David Cockroft stated: “It is difficult to see this as anything other than deliberate obstructionism, taking advantage of the pending privatisation of the enterprise.”

He urged the government and its ministry of transport to act to ensure that the matter was settled. He said: “It is no surprise that the union itself has lost confidence in the management and instead is looking to your government for the decisive action that the executive board seems unwilling to take. The ITF can only share their concern, and call upon the government of Kuwait to again involve itself in search of a satisfactory solution.”

MORE: ITF denounces “deliberate obstructionism” in Kuwait airline dispute

The Transport Workers Union of Australia has produced a video about what it is doing to protect quality Australian jobs at Qantas despite the management’s ambitions to outsource work to overseas destinations.  Outsourcing and deunionisation are now common themes in all aviation workplaces, and the union is resisting these ‘profit before people’ policies.