Industrial Relations Strategies in the Air Pilots' Dispute 1989

This paper examines the defeat of the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP) in the 1989 pilots' dispute in terms of strategic inertia. In challenging the Government, the Commission, the ACTU and the airlines over the wage fixation guidelines the AFAP failed to take full account of the current industrial relations context. A successful attempt by the Federation to achieve increases outside the indexation buidelines in 1977–78 ever one of the significant examples of AFAP strength in past campaigns which may have led the Federation leadership to emulate previous strategies. The AFAP thus limited consideration of tactical options in 1989. Its reaction to legal action initiated by the airlines was to organise the mass resignation of members, weakening its bargaining position. Both US air traffic controllers in their 1984 dispute and the AFAP maintained inflexible courses, ignoring every opportunity to retreat and regoup in the face of major defeats. In contrast, Qantas pilots and Australian Air Traffic Controllers gained significant salary increases within the guidelines. Having lost exclusive coverage of pilots, the Federation's future may now be dependent on closer links with the trade union movement and amalgamation.