Baggage handlers, mechanics, flight attendants, ticket agents, pilots, and others joined angry demonstrations at Ansett terminals around the country to condemn the closure and to demand payment of their estimated $A500 million in entitlements to unpaid wages, unused holiday pay, sick pay, long service leave pay, and redundancy payments ($A1 = US 49 cents).

Despite weeks of increasingly nervous speculation, and amid assurances from Ansett's top bosses that the airline would stay afloat, the company eliminated the jobs of 16,000 workers without notice. Tens of thousands of passengers were stranded in the days that followed.

Workers at wholly owned Ansett subsidiaries, including regional carriers Kendell Airlines, Hazleton Airlines, Flight West, Aeropelican, and Traveland, one of the top three national travel agencies, are also out of work. Thousands more who worked for suppliers, such as national food contractor Gategourmet, have also been sacked. The flow-on effect could mean thousands more workers in related industries will lose their jobs.  
 
Largest corporate collapse
Measured by the number of workers thrown out of work, it is the largest corporate collapse in the history of the country and comes on top of other recent high-profile bankruptcies, including insurance giant HIH and mobile phone company One.Tel.

Rural and regional areas were particularly hard hit, with Ansett or its subsidiaries having had a monopoly on many smaller, less profitable routes.

The workforce is highly unionized. In Adelaide, workers maintained a 24-hour blockade of the terminal for the first three days. Workers in Sydney also protested in the central business district on September 14 with a 1,500-strong rally. Smaller protests have been maintained during daylight hours to keep watch over assets at all Ansett terminals.

Reeling from the protests and with a federal election mandated before the end of the year, the conservative government of Prime Minister John Howard demagogically promised to revise the Corporations Law to permit employees to go to the top of the list of creditors ahead of secured creditors such as banks.

Ansett was owned by Air New Zealand, and the Howard government has used the closing to stoke the fires of Australian nationalism. He promised to pay part of the entitlements owed to those workers directly employed by Ansett or its subsidiaries through a tax on airline tickets, if the government's pursuit of Air New Zealand, Ansett's parent company, failed. Air New Zealand is itself teetering on the brink of insolvency. Both the lead-up and the aftermath to the Ansett collapse have been marked by anti-New Zealand chauvinism emanating from politicians and labor officials.

Despite the rhetoric of close economic cooperation across the Tasman Sea, with an economy and population many times the size of New Zealand's, Australia's capitalist class uses these facts to their competitive advantage to force Australian goods into the New Zealand market and frequently block access to Australia for goods produced by New Zealand's workers and farmers.

Attacking what he termed "dithering" by the New Zealand Labour government on a rescue package for Air New Zealand, Australian Labor Party MP Martin Ferguson said September 6, "We are talking about 15,000 Australian jobs and I find it strange that the New Zealand prime minister can make quick decisions about illegal migrants [from the Tampa], but when it comes to expeditious decisions about 15,000 Australian jobs, we can't get a bloody decision."

Air New Zealand, despite being the smaller airline, took full ownership of Ansett after buying the News Corp.'s stake in 2000. Air New Zealand's owners had long chafed under protectionist laws that blocked them from entering the much bigger Australian market for many years. In 1996 they were permitted to acquire 50 percent of Ansett.

In the wake of Ansett's collapse, Australian politicians and union officials have bemoaned the loss of what they term a 65-year-old "Australian icon." Some union officials have called for a boycott of Air New Zealand but support for this view is far from unanimous. Brian Saxby, a porter/loader with five years at Ansett and a member of the Transport Workers Union, told the Militant, "We shouldn't boycott Air New Zealand. How's that going to help, if they go under?" Saxby also disagreed with putting a tax on airline tickets. "Why should the public have to pay for our misfortune?" he asked.

Some workers have been drawn into the rulers' nationalist and anti-New Zealand framework. On the morning of the collapse, workers at Melbourne airport used machinery to block planes from taking off that were scheduled to return Prime Minister Helen Clark to New Zealand. Ultimately, a New Zealand air force Orion flew to Australia to retrieve her.

There is also speculation in the big-business press that the Australian government was prepared to let Ansett fail in order to block Singapore Airlines, which is now part owner of Air New Zealand, from gaining a foothold in the domestic market.

With the demise of its only major competitor, Qantas has moved in rapidly, seeking to increase its share of the domestic market to 90 percent. Many stranded passengers have had to pay full-fare prices to continue their journey. Virgin Blue has said it is prepared to increase its operations in the wake of the Ansett collapse. It currently operates limited routes with nine planes. Virgin Blue, owned by Richard Branson, started up in mid-2000 as a no-frills, discount fare airline.

Ansett went to the wall due to the fierce price war since then, combined with sharply rising jet fuel costs, the second oldest fleet among the world's 50 largest airlines, and sharp declines in both the Australian and New Zealand dollars in the last year.

"I don't think we'll get our jobs back at Ansett," said Eric, a ramp worker with 14 years on the job, who didn't want his last name used. "But we're fighting for our entitlements." Asked about the likelihood of another airline being set up in the wake of Ansett's demise, he simply said, "Qantas doesn't want any competition."

Some 50 members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) from sites around Sydney joined the protest at the Ansett terminal September 19. "I wanted to do cartwheels when the MUA workers and banners arrived" because of what it meant for solidarity, airline worker Brian Saxby said.

Doug Cooper is a member of the Maritime Union of Australia. Ron Poulsen contributed to this article.  
 
 
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