Over the past few weeks the ASU Jetstar National Negotiating Team (NNT) has met with Company representatives four times about a range of issues including the payroll review phase 2, the work being done on a new rostering system (Groundstar) and the Company's position on recommencing our EBA 5 negotiations. Our last meeting was on 13 August 2014. Here is a brief summary of the major points.
Payroll
Jetstar has had an independent set of auditors, Delloite, reviewing all the payroll for all staff not just ASU covered staff for almost a year now.
Delloite have also "reviewed" the work of the Jetstar Payroll improvement Program which as we know reported in May 2013 and which produced a range of results which many staff questioned and were not happy with.
The last review highlighted under crediting and over crediting of long service leave, annual leave, days in lieu and sick leave. Many people had annual leave deducted and when they questioned the calculations, although we were promised there would be full transparency, there was not and people could not get proper explanations for what happened. Some people who did persistently question what was done did find errors.
We understand that this latest payroll review is nearing completion and that soon we will hear the results – as will staff. We still remain concerned that there have been systemic problems with calculating and paying meal allowances and we urge you to talk to your local ASU delegate ASAP about this as we are assembling evidence for proceedings to claim backpay for meal allowances and other payments/penalties that have been wrongly paid for a long long time.
Rostering
Jetstar management has been working on the implementation of a new centralized computerised rostering system package for airports called "Groundstar". A lot of time has been devoted to this by the Company and they have been trying to standardize the EBA rules which to date have not been standardized across ports. Our discussions with the Company on their interpretation of some of our EBA clauses have been productive and helpful and we are hopeful a few old problems of interpretation may be ironed out.
A trial of Groundstar is due to start soon at Coolangatta airport and then the system will be rolled out elsewhere. Stay tuned for more information.
New Cabin Baggage Officers
Jetstar will shortly confirm that they will be engaging 30 part time level 3 Cabin Baggage Officers in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Coolangatta and Cairns for a 6 month period to police non compliance with the cabin baggage policies.
Initially the Company had wanted these positions to be classified at level 1 of our EBA – this was clearly not right and we are pleased to report that after our representations the positions will be correctly classified at level 3 of our EBA.
We will watch with the interest the results of the trials of these new positions – make sure you give your local representative feedback.
EBA 5 negotiations resume
We resumed discussions with Jetstar management about the EBA on 13th August 2014. The Company is now putting to your NNT that no pay rise would be made until 1st April 2015 and that the pay offer at that time would be 3% and then 3% each year after that for 3 years until the EBA expires on 30 March 2018 – (originally it was to be 30th September 2016). There also is some back tracking on conditions that the Company was offering to us when they last could talk sensibly about the EBA in December 2013.
We have responded to the Company about the unfairness of their offer and they have gone away to consider what we said.
Our next meeting is scheduled for 15th September 2014 in Sydney.
If you want more details please talk to your local organisers/NNT member (download the full bulletin below for details).
Jetstar EBA 5 Bulletin - 21 August 2014