That is what your ASU delegates think about the recent cancellation of our EBA meeting on 11th November less than 24 hours before it was scheduled and the failure of the company to put their offer to us in writing.
These matters coupled with the failure to finalise the payroll review mean only one thing – it is time for members to get organised and activated so the company takes us seriously.
A history of delay
Members will recall that this time last year your ASU negotiating team (NNT) were getting close to locking in a deal with Jetstar for EBA 5, then the parent company Qantas decided to “rethink” its wages policy and over December 2013, January through to February 2014 we couldn’t get an answer to our offer of settlement until the company came back with the view there would be an indefinite pay freeze.
It took a long time to get bargaining restarted as Qantas debated its wages policy with itself and finally decided on an 18 month freeze.
Since then Jetstar has put new claims on the table created new positions and flagged a new rostering system.
Most recently we have written to the company seeking written responses to a range of EBA issues and 2 weeks later we still have not got a response and then the company cancels our meeting and proposes another meeting on or after 9th December 2014.
This is not good enough……
Is our job security at risk?
One of our critical claims was the continuation of our key job security commitment of ensuring that the Jetstar Services Agreement (formerly EGH) is not used to engage staff to do our work at a lower rate.
You will recall we secured this commitment in EBA 4 but it expires on 15 March 2015.
We must finalise this claim before 15th March 2015 – if we don’t then our previous agreement will expire and our job security is threatened. Every delayed meeting brings us closer to the cutoff date and although Jetstar says they will continue this key job security commitment – we must finalise this EBA soon to guarantee this key claim.
Does anyone really want to trust their job security to the word of Jetstar managers without a signed sealed and delivered written agreement?
But wait… there is more
If the delays in bargaining are not bad enough the payroll review is still not finalised. We are hearing that the review has found substantial over crediting of leave and overpayments which we believe Jetstar will be seeking back from staff – there are we believe underpayments too but these are less than the overpayments.
So while Jetstar is asking you to take a wage freeze it may well be that they will also be asking staff to pay them back for their own miscalculations, errors and ineptitude in running a payroll system!
Yes you read that right – pay them while you take a pay freeze.
This would come at a time after the company supposedly carried out a review back 6 years in 2013 and deducted annual leave hours from over 190 staff and sick leave hours from over 245 staff. When they did this – no one could check properly this was correct and we were told the system was fixed.. yeah right…
That a company cannot pay staff correctly beggars belief.
Nothing is confirmed but if you don’t agree with having to pay back Jetstar for their mistakes now is not the time to sit back and take this if it eventuates.
Take action now
If ever there was a time to get organised and active it is now – we must:
- Get Jetstar management to focus on doing a deal for our EBA 5 covering off our outstanding issues
- Stop any attempts to claim back more leave from ASU members because of Jetstar’s payroll debacles.
Talk to your delegates about what you can do today because really -Enough is Enough!
