Qantas EBA9
Qantas EBA – Going Nowhere Fast
- Details
- Published on Thursday, 10 February, 2011
We’re back into negotiations after a long break, keen to make some progress in the now 8 month long negotiations for EBA9. Your National Negotiating Team (NNT) met with Qantas management on 1st February 2011 for the 16th meeting about the EBA. Your NNT were full of hope for the prospects of the New Year but we quickly realised it’s business as usual at Qantas; stalling on the wage claim, and avoiding the real issues facing staff like rostering, job security, and contractors rates.
What meeting were Qantas management at?
The latest ‘EBA exchange’ issued by Qantas on the 3rd February 2011 mistakenly suggests that Qantas made an offer on our wage claim. That did not happen at the meeting we were at. Your NNT has also extensively outlined why we want the wage outcome we want – Qantas management just does not want to hear that ASU members are worth respect and a decent outcome. The Qantas version of our last negotiations is a radically different version of events to those that we have experienced in negotiations so far.
We have been very clear about our claim. ASU members deserve 5%. There are many good reasons why our wage settlement should be greater than Virgin, and these have been outlined in depth to Qantas. To be exact the NNT have put our arguments on the merits of the ASU claim on the 13th July, 4th August, 20th October, 27th October, 29th November and 9th December.
We have argued about the work you do, the cost of living, our increased productivity, and the complexity of work at the frontline when disasters like volcanic eruptions, A380 issues and rescheduling occurs.
Contrary to the story told in EBA exchange Qantas is yet to provide a figure in response to our wage claim. Qantas has refused to put a wage response they just complain like a broken record about their competitors. . The justification for this approach is that management will not provide a response until all other claims have been resolved.
Marking time is not good enough
It is becoming clear to us that Qantas Management want to maintain the status quo in some of our real areas of concern.
Our claims are informed by real problems that ASU members experience in their daily working lives. The status quo isn’t good enough. This EBA presents an opportunity to fix the payroll and rostering issues, to gain job security for members who perceive that their jobs are threatened by Airports of the Future and the contracting arrangements at QBT. These are issues worth fighting for!
No resolution in sight
In the spirit of trying to reach a resolution the ASU identified a number of our claims that are priorities. These were identified by the National Negotiating Team as the issues members felt were the most important in an EBA outcome. They are the pay claim, rostering, contractor’s rates, compensation for payroll changes, better operation of part time and improved staff travel.
The reclassification claims are also a priority, and we are waiting on the company’s view on a number of reclassification applications that were submitted last year.
Whats Next?
Late last year the ASU held meetings of members to update you on where our negotiations were at. Members overwhelmingly endorsed our meeting resolution which was as follows:
We, the members of the Australian Services Union, deserve respect.
We deserve greater recognition of the contribution we make to ensure that Qantas remains Australia’s number one airline.
We believe that Qantas’ failure to offer fair and reasonable increases to our wages and improvement to our conditions during the EBA shows neither respect nor recognition.
We believe that the only way to secure a fair wage increase and improvements to our conditions is to take action. We request that the NNT consider a range of actions to put pressure on Qantas which may include putting in an application for industrial action.
The NNT is now formulating our plans as a result of this resolution- watch out for more details shortly.
If you want more information talk to your local ASU delegate or National Negotiating Team member.
