After months of delays at the Fair Work Commission Menzies has decided to withdraw your enterprise agreement from the approval process. The ASU have received a commitment from the company that they will honour the backpay and bonus for staff, and will now focus on securing a new longer term EBA (which was due to be negotiated over the coming months).
What does this mean?
After a ‘Yes’ vote all enterprise agreements must be approved by the Fair Work Commission before they are enforceable. In approving an agreement, the Fair Work Commission applies a test known as the Better Off Overall Test. An agreement passes the Better Off Overall Test if all employees covered by the enterprise agreement are better off for being covered by the agreement than they would be if they were engaged on basic Award conditions.
The Fair Work Commission has asked Menzies a number of questions to help it understand the agreement and flagged concerns with some terms of the agreement.
Menzies has told us that it will take too long to get the new agreement approved, so they are withdrawing the new agreement.
What about my bonus and pay increase?
Your union has secured a commitment from Menzies to pay your bonus by Friday 16th March and to apply the 2% pay increase from 1st July 2018.
Until a new enterprise agreement is approved your current EA (Menzies Aviation (Sydney and Melbourne) Customer Service Agreement 2014). Menzies has agreed to also implement the 5 days paid family and domestic violence leave, the correction to the higher duties allowance and the statements regarding equal opportunity employment and flexible working arrangements.
What happens next?
We will be speaking to employees at mass meetings next week and will be working with Menzies to ensure that all staff are tasked to attend.
Members need to get ready for bargaining for a new agreement. To make sure we get the best deal we need everyone to be a member of the union. If you know anyone who isn’t an ASU member, ask them to join today.