Since the last meeting on 11 December 2013 (see bulletin 7) your National Negotiating Team (NNT) have scheduled 3 meetings with Jetstar management to try and get the company's response to our EBA 5 issues – each time the company reps have postponed the meeting saying they could not get a response from senior management because of the Qantas Group Review that was announced late in 2013.
Our last scheduled meeting was for 12 February 2014 and we got the same response. The company says they are postponing all EBA negotiations until after the Qantas half yearly profit announcement on 27 February 2014. As a result our next EBA meeting is now scheduled for Tuesday 4 March 2014.
What do we know?
Your NNT did have an opportunity to question the Jetstar negotiators about what the Qantas Group Review would mean for Jetstar employees. Unfortunately we got few if any answers. The company will not say if Jetstar will be targeted for job losses or operational changes, all their reps would say is that senior management are conducting a review and announcements will be made on 27 February 2014.
We asked them to rule out contracting out, offshoring of jobs or job losses and they would not give us any indication of what is being considered for Jetstar staff. We told them this adds to uncertainty and while we got sympathy, there was not much else.
We asked how the airport rostering project is going and it apparently is running 6 weeks behind schedule – the company should be able to discuss progress at or close to our next scheduled meeting
What's next?
We all must now await the Qantas Group announcement on 27 February 2014. The ASU is also participating in an all Qantas Group union meeting convened by the ACTU with the senior executives of the Qantas Group on 28 February 2014. We will also have our next EBA meeting on 4 March 2014 and we will report back to members then about progress.
Watch out for our next bulletin for an update or contact your local NNT member or ASU organiser for information (download full bulletin below for details).
Update - 14 February 2014
The ASU wrote to Qantas management today demanding a clarification following a report in today's Australian Financial Review (print edition) in which Qantas denied "union claims that it had postponed workplace bargaining at its low cost carrier, Jetstar, until after its half yearly results" appear. Qantas has since retracted the claim. A copy of our letter can be found here.
Update - 21 February 2014
Qantas management responded in writing yesterday to our letter of 14 February confirming the ASU's description of the situation in our Jetstar bulletin of 13 February (see above and full bulletin download below). A copy of the Qantas letter can be found here.
Jetstar EBA 5 Bulletin - 12 February 2014