This was the theme of our discussions with Qantas management at the third negotiating meeting with the ASU National Negotiating Team in Sydney on 3 August 2004.

At the meeting we discussed the following ASU claims:

• Preventing contracting out/offshoring/outsourcing of Qantas work
• Abolition of competitive tendering
• Changing the definition of when carers leave can be accessed
• Providing access to a leave without pay scheme
• Broadening the definition of medical evidence for access to sick leave
• Providing a choice of superannuation funds for employees in the accumulation fund
• Having transparent and realistic targets for receiving Qantas shares
• Including safety net outcomes in our Awards
• Improving union delegates rights provisions

Copies of our detailed claims are available on our website. The company did not formally respond to our claims, they said they will do so on 24 August 2004.

Just briefly

This is what we said on some of the claims:

Contracting Out/Outsourcing/ Offshoring/Competitive Tendering

93% of our survey respondents said this was a key claim for them. We have told the company this and our claim is that there be no contracting out/outsourcing or offshoring during the life of the EBA. We have called for an end to competitive tendering. We asked what is happening with the Phase 3 Airports whose contracts expired on 30 June 2004. The company says they are being "reviewed". We also have sought confirmation in the EBA of the Geoff Dixon announcement in June that call centres are not being offshored. We have also sought commitments that ASU work in Qantas will not be transferred to subsidiaries like Jetstar or Express Ground Handling Pty Ltd.

Carers leave

We want the definition to include attending a person who is hospitalised or attending medical appointments/treatment. Qantas says this is in the company policy already - yet we can point to many examples where managers are denying carers leave. We want this provision in our EBA so it can be taken further if necessary when knock backs occur.

Transparent & realistic targets for shares

Last year the Qantas Board did not give any staff in the Qantas Profit Share Scheme any shares as the company did not make the required targets. No one knows what the targets are or why the Board did not award any shares. Although Qantas was the best performing airline worldwide last year, no explanation was given. Since the inception of the scheme in 1996, this is the first year no shares have been awarded. In the past we have been told that shares are part of the package for staff and should be counted as such.

Not getting the $1000 worth of shares has meant for some people a 2.5% drop in their promised package with no explanation, no apology...this came in the same financial year that the Board awarded itself a 36% payrise (this occurred on 17 October 2002 at the Qantas AGM, see ASU Bulletin - 9 October 2002). You have to wonder if the Board funded their payrise with our shares!

Union delegates rights

For union delegates to be effective they need to be trained properly. It is also a hard job being a delegate, particularly in a shift environment so often we need many delegates to make sure members get good service. The current paid time allowance for delegates' training is not enough in many areas as we exhaust the training very early in the year and delegates miss out so members miss out.

We have asked the company to double the training days per workplace. This means for instance where there are 0-50 employees the number of days per year would be a total of 10 days to be shared between delegates. Also delegates perform a lot of work on their own time - this helps the company and delegates often help members solve problems. The company generally only holds meetings in Sydney for major matters and interstate delegates frequently can spend many hours away and yet they don't get paid for all of the time it takes them to get to Sydney and back.

We told the company it is time they valued the contribution of delegates. Just as an example the Hobart delegate attending the National Negotiating meeting leaves home at 5am and returns at 11pm for each negotiation meeting. He gets paid for only 8 hours of this time.

A better definition of medical evidence

As we all know it can be very difficult to get in to see a doctor on the day you are sick in many places in Australia. Currently our Award does not allow employees to provide a statutory declaration as an alternative to a medical certificate unless the company requests this. In many places our faxback information indicates staff are not being paid sick leave if they provide a statutory declaration or some other practitioner's certificate like a physio, chiropractor, osteopath etc.

Some managers are even knocking back specialist doctor's certificates and we received some information of outrageous stories of this occurring. We have told Qantas that other companies like major banks and state government departments accept other types of certificates and this should be OK at Qantas.

Statutory declarations are also acceptable in many companies and given they are sworn documents which bring the full force of the law upon the people if they are untrue Qantas should accept them.

The Qantas Claims

We only briefly discussed one Qantas claim at our meeting - this was their proposal to buyout RDOs. From our discussion the intention of their clause is to allow the buyout of RDOs permanently in various workplaces not on a one off basis. We asked them to specify the rate of buyout and how this would occur at the next meeting. Certainly our initial interpretation of the proposal was not that it was a permanent buyout.

Welcome to QFIT rep

Andrew Pearce joined the National Negotiating Team at 21 July 2004 meeting to represent QFIT employees. Andrew is a Senior Technical Analyst based in financial management, managed services in Sydney. QFIT staff with ideas and queries should contact Andrew for updates.

Consolidation of EBAs

A small subcommittee of the National Negotiating Team has met once with Qantas to discuss consolidating all our current 6 EBAs into one document to make it easier to understand. The first meeting was productive but we certainly are mindful not to allow Qantas to use this process to delete clauses which are still active and necessary.

Where to next?

The next meetings are on 17 & 24 August 2004. We will finish providing our detailed claims by 17 August 2004 and expect the company to provide a detailed response on 24 August 2004. From 17 August, we will be holding meetings of members to discuss Qantas' claims and our response. Watch out for meeting dates.

Related Documents: