Your ASU NNT members met with Virgin management on 25th March 2013 and tabled our objections to their first draft agreement. We received another draft version of the agreement at the meeting with a new and very significant inclusion in the overtime clause – a proposal to include a definition of a new kind of work – "non rostered work" for the purpose of the overtime clause.
There was no detail about what "non rostered work" was at our meeting. The detail came after Easter in the form of an email. And to say the least we think you need to be very concerned about what is being proposed.
What does management want?
Virgin management is proposing that in the overtime clause of the new agreement the following new definition be added:
"For the purpose of this clause, Overtime, non rostered work is work over and above an employee's ordinary rostered hours of work. An employee may be offered and accept additional non rostered hours of work that arise in the course of the employee's shift. Non rostered hours of work are paid at the employee's normal ordinary hourly rate and overtime is in accordance with clause 24.1."
What this seems to mean is, if you agree to work more hours on a day you are at work which goes beyond your rostered hours you won't be paid overtime no matter how many hours you have already worked on that day.
This clause will result in a significant cut in entitlements and income and seems to go against the Virgin public view to team members that they want a simple agreement and are changing nothing much and just want to pay more money.
Your NNT think this is a bad clause and must be opposed not only because it reduces our income but also because it will lead to the company rostering less hours and offering additional hours at the last minute and getting "agreement" from staff desperate to work more hours.
Currently Virgin cannot direct you to work additional hours or overtime so we can't see a circumstance where a team member would work extra hours without agreeing.
This new clause significantly undermines your overtime entitlements and must absolutely be opposed.
What are we doing?
We are going to raise our concerns about this clause when we next speak to the company representatives on around 9th April. You also need to raise your concerns too.
We are also continuing to tell Virgin that their wages and classification proposal is not good enough and that, work to Virgin employees not contractors must be prioritised.
We also have reaffirmed the need for a process for converting part time employees to full time and we want, better higher duties provisions and movement on our other claims.
What next?
The ASU NNT believe the current draft of the EBA needs significant changes before we could support it.
We will see what our next discussion brings – we can only hope that Virgin listens to what they are being told and make significant changes.
We are not hopeful though as we think Virgin management are keen to put their current version of the agreement out for vote soon.
Watch out for more information next week.
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