Qantas refuses to negotiate over outdated safety standards: your latest bargaining update

On Wednesday, the your ASU national negotiation team met with Qantas to continue negotiations over your new enterprise agreement.  

Safer rosters

We have been advocating for safer rostering practices at the airline, which minimises workplace fatigue. While conceding that the current guidelines are outdated, Qantas initially proposed fatigue guidelines that would play a role in ensuring your safety at work - but has since redrawn the guidelines and decided that it is not appropriate to negotiate those protections with the ASU. The airline says it will consult health and safety reps, but it is not enough. It is completely disingenuous to propose guidelines only to withdraw them.

Health and Safety Reps play a vital role in ensuring safer workplaces and your negotiating team includes committed health and safety reps and an experienced union that is well-placed to join the discussion. We will continue to push that fatigue management plays a key in our claims.

Classifications

ASU members have told us that it is important to improve the current classification structure to recognise and value the skills and professional expertise of Qantas Employees and protect workers from underpayments. There is a broad range of issues - from how Qantas classifies ticketing, to creating career paths for the workforce, to the $7M underpayment the airline had to pay back to 638 employees (mostly SPs) because the airline misclassified the staff. That stuff up meant Qantas had to enter into a court-enforceable undertaking with the Fair Work Ombudsman to back-pay those staff and rectify the underpayment.  

With Qantas still refusing to commit to an agreement that covers all workers, it is very difficult to progress discussions on the classification structure, because there are so many unknowns. This is why we have gone to the Fair Work Commission and asked them to make a ruling that everyone who was covered by EBA11 will be covered by EBA12.  We will keep members updated on this.

Creating career paths

Surprisingly, Qantas has abandoned the long-standing process of when a full-time position become available that is if filled via port seniority. The Airline’s view is that conversion only occurs where:

1. The ordinary hours of work worked by a part time employee (including shift extensions) exceeds an average of 35 hours per week over the preceding 12 months, or
2. Qantas decreases the number of part-time employees and decides to have a corresponding increase in full-time employees.

This smashes that long term practice of when a full-time job becomes available it would be filled by the employee with the longest serving employees completing similar functions. We will continue to advocate for a commitment for objective criteria to the appointment process to ensure fair process for all employees.

What else are we campaigning for?

• Fairer and more stable rosters that give workers certainty and work/life balance
• More hours for part time employees
• Commitments from Qantas on job security
• Improvements to paid parental leave

It’s time to join the ASU

We are only going to be win the improvements we deserve if our union is as strong as it can be. That means if you are not already a member, now is the time to join. You can join online here: www.asu.asn.au/asujoin. If you require any support or additional information, please contact your local ASU delegates or ASU organiser at: