{"id":6010,"date":"2020-04-14T01:59:16","date_gmt":"2020-04-14T01:59:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/?p=6010"},"modified":"2020-04-14T01:59:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-14T01:59:16","slug":"airline-bailout-is-not-working-for-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/04\/14\/airline-bailout-is-not-working-for-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Airline bailout is not working for workers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Greens transport spokesperson Senator Janet Rice has called on the Government to attach conditions to any bailout money given to airlines to provide the financial support necessary to pay all workers, rather than allowing Qantas and Virgin to stand down workers without compensation.<br \/>\n<strong>Greens transport spokesperson Senator Janet Rice said:<\/strong><br \/>\n\u201cVirgin Australia today stood down 80% of its workforce, only days after the parliament passed the government\u2019s minimum $715 million airline bailout. Last week, Qantas stood down two thirds of its workers.<br \/>\n\u201cThese workers will be facing weeks and months of uncertainty and hardship if the government does not act now to attach conditions to their major airline corporate bailout. The government\u2019s first priority should be ensuring airlines keep their workforce in place as we go through this crisis.<br \/>\n\u201cBoth Virgin and Qantas have spent a fortune on share buy-backs to prop up shareholder value. They have paid out exorbitant CEO salaries and both companies have successfully minimised their tax over many years. Yet many of their workers will now be forced to join the endless Centrelink queues around Australia.<br \/>\n\u201cWorkers should not be the victims of cost-cutting in the bad times while shareholders and executives lived it up during the good times.<br \/>\n\u201cThis bailout should be done by the Federal Government taking an equity stake in the airlines so that the community gets some return on their investment.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cKeeping airlines afloat is obviously important to ensure essential transport during this crisis. But it needs to be done in a way that ensures a fair outcome for workers and taxpayers, rather than another handout for corporate investors.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cAll public support should be conditional on the airlines guaranteeing jobs. We must do everything we can to protect the tens of thousands of employees of these two companies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Greens transport spokesperson Senator Janet Rice has called on the Government to attach conditions to any bailout money given to airlines to provide the financial support necessary to pay all workers, rather than allowing Qantas and Virgin to stand down workers without compensation. Greens transport spokesperson Senator Janet Rice said: \u201cVirgin Australia today stood down &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/2020\/04\/14\/airline-bailout-is-not-working-for-workers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Airline bailout is not working for workers&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6010","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aussie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6010"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6010\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6010"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6010"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.16news.com.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6010"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}