ASU delegates and officials met with Qantas airports management on 16th July 2020 to finalise the consultation about how the initial stage of the Expression of Interest (EOI) process will operate in airport customer service following the announcement of the Qantas Next 100 recovery plan by Alan Joyce on 26th June.
After three meetings to clarify a range of issues in airport, non-binding EOI’s will go out on Monday 20th July. You do not have to fill in an EOI but if you do have a preference for any of the 3 alternatives that are listed you must return your EOI form by 2nd August 2020.
The purpose of the EOI process is primarily to see if Qantas can find volunteers to take redundancy to fill their redundancy targets for customer service areas. There are targets for each airport which total 424 people across all Australian airports, this forms part of the total redundancies for all areas in airports which is around 1500.
The EOIs also ask you to indicate if you would like Special Leave without pay or to convert temporarily from Full time to part time work --- these measures are to deal with the fact that it will take some time for the aviation industry to go back to normal so the company is looking for ways in which the excess of employees after redundancies occur can be managed.
EOIs are non-binding on Qantas and on staff --- this means to make it binding there will be a process after 2nd August. To be clear there is nothing that can make Qantas agree to any of your preferences. The EOIs are the first phase and then we move to the next phase of looking at the results and understanding what Qantas is proposing for the next and subsequent phases.
Your ASU reps will be consulted again by Qantas after EOIs close to look at the results and talk about process and issues with a view to maximising the preferences that members want but also ensuring that we fight for all jobs and for the allocation of work for those who remain. ASU members will be consulted every step of the way on the next set of processes and decisions.
What do you need to do?
Make sure you read all the materials supplied to you. The government is likely to announce what they are doing about the continuation of Jobkeeper after the current September 2020 deadline on 23rd July, many members have told us that this government announcement is an important issue for their decision making, we will distribute information about the announcement as soon as we can after it is made.
If you have questions feel free to ask your local ASU delegates or organisers or Qantas, it is important to understand your rights and what is being proposed and that you get as much information as possible to make a decision about what is best for you. (download the full bulletin here)