Working to Live - Bulletin 5

The ASU Qantas National Negotiating Team met for the first time on 13 July 2004 with the company representatives to start negotiations for EBA 7.

What happened?

This meeting was the first indication we have received of the kind of changes that the company wants in this EBA. It is clear that this time around Qantas is targeting job security and the number of permanent jobs by trying to eliminate the need to consult and agree with our union on the circumstances for hiring of such staff.

This is not surprising given that CEO Geoff Dixon signalled last year that the company wants to significantly increase the number of casuals, labour hire and part time employees.

Your National Negotiating Team believe that these proposals are directly aimed at achieving these goals. These proposals will effect every single person covered by our EBA - that is approximately 10,800 staff working for Qantas Airways, QFCL, QFIT and Qantas Holidays - or nearly one third of the company's staff.

So what does the company want?

The Company claims targets the following issues:

• Part Time Employees - make the part timers "more flexible" by changing how overtime is allocated and eliminating the current requirement that overtime hours are counted for the purposes of the cap and for conversions to full time. (EBA 4, Clause 4);(EBA 5, Clause A9)
• Fixed Term Employees - eliminate the need to consult and agree with employees and the ASU about the engagement of fixed term employees including whether the work can be performed by existing employees, the numbers required etc. (EBA 4, Clause 8)
• Casuals - eliminate the need to consult and agree with the ASU on the circumstances when casuals can be engaged. (EBA 4, Clause 9)
• Buyout RDOs - change the way RDOs operate including the ability to buyout RDOs area by area. (Airline Officers Award)
• Perth 12 hour break - change the break requirements from 12 hours to 10 hours. (EBA 4, Clause 18)

There are no surprises in the company's pay offer - it is the standard 3% that has been offered every round regardless of the company's profitability or outlook.

No other wage or benefit offer has been made, eg. shares. We have not responded to the claims but will gather more information and commence consultation with members about our response.

The response to our claims

We expect a response at coming meetings scheduled for 21 July 2004, 10 August 2004 and 17 August 2004. No formal response was received to our claim yet.

What can you do?

To make our negotiations more effective it will help your negotiating team if we have examples of why we want some of our conditions changed. In the Related Document section at the bottom of this news item you can print off the bulletin which contains a faxback form about the issue of sick leave, carers leave and leave without pay which you can help us with, so we can explain our claim. You can also email your story to airlines@asu.asn.au.

We are particularly interested to receive examples of when you have not been able to get sick leave paid because the company knocked back the evidence provided, when you were refused leave without pay or when you couldn't get carers leave.

Many people have already told us their stories but to convince Qantas of the need for change we need more examples. Nothing will be disclosed to Qantas identifying you.

Don't let them eat cake

Yesterday Brisbane ASU members in Telephone Sales, Qantas Holidays, Qantas Business Travel and Freight had been planning on celebrating our first day of negotiations with cakes supplied by the ASU. As in the past plans had been made to sit in the tea rooms with cake and talk about the claims and EBA as people took regular breaks.

Unfortunately this was stopped by Industrial Relations in Sydney who refused your union access to the tea rooms saying there had been objections raised by staff locally.

No one has ever heard these objections before and we strongly believe that IR is just trying to make sure that staff don't get regular and accurate information from their union representatives about the EBA and how your wages and conditions are determined.

It is a pretty petty response and you have to question why the company can let other providers like rental car companies, mortgage brokers etc into the tea room but a staff union is excluded.

We all know information is power - management wants to control the information and wants to make sure that people can't have fun and celebrate their union's strength and determination. We should not stand for this censorship, tell your managers what you think about this anti union attitude.