Emirates staff are standing together and voting NO to Emirates proposed Agreement. Emirates staff have been negotiating their pay and conditions with management for over a year, but the company is yet to make a reasonable offer. Emirates staff just want the company to respect and value their loyalty and experience with the company.
The ASU anticipates that Emirates will ask staff to vote again on a proposed Agreement with very few improvements, We recommend a NO vote because the proposed Agreement:
- Has a below industry standard redundancy package
- Cuts the Merit Pot in half
- Provides a wage freeze for 2017
- Has a pay rise below CPI for 2018 and 2019
- Cuts Annual Leave and Long Service Leave for new staff (this means existing staff cost more)
It’s time to vote NO again to show Emirates we deserve better.
Redundancy package falls short
The Bargaining Committee met with Emirates on Monday 11 September. Your Bargaining Committee have always said that the redundancy package should include increases to the redundancy scale. Emirates has rejected staff concerns and said they believe your redundancy entitlements are good enough.
Emirates’ current offer caps Redundancy payments at forty-four weeks.
In comparison with other airline carriers Qantas, Cathay and Singapore, the ASU has members entitled to much higher redundancy caps as the table below shows.
| Years of Service
(Min 1 year Service) |
Emirates Offer |
Qantas |
Cathay |
Singapore |
| MAX | 44 | 95 | 92 | 85 |
Given the closure of the Adelaide ticketing office, the committee told Emirates that you believe the redundancy provisions are now more important than ever. An improved redundancy package from Emirates would show that the company values staff experience and their years of loyalty to the company.
We said that the consultation provisions protecting staff during times of major workplace change could be improved. We asked that when Emirates finds alternative employment instead of offering redundancy, you will be able to agree to the position before a decision is made. This proposal was also rejected by Emirates.
Merit Pot
Emirates completed ‘Performance Matters!’ appraisals for your 2016 performance during January to February 2017. During bargaining, the ASU requested a summary of the completed assessments and Emirates provided us with two tables, as follows:
| YOUR GRADE | THE OVERALL “PERFORMANCE MATTERS” RATING ACHIEVED BY FEBRUARY 2017 | TOTAL | ||||
| Excellent | Very Good | Good | Developing | Unacceptable | ||
| 4 | 1 | 71 | 4 | 76 | ||
| 5 | 1 | 14 | 113 | 1 | 129 | |
| 6 | 4 | 48 | 1 | 53 | ||
| 7 | 3 | 44 | 47 | |||
| 8 | 3 | 7 | 10 | |||
| TE | 1 | 2 | 8 | 11 | ||
| Total | 2 | 27 | 291 | 6 | 0 | 326 |
| GRADE | AVERAGE VARIABLE MERIT POT INCREASE UNDER THE 2014 AGREEMENT BASED ON INDIVIDUAL RATINGS ACHIEVED BY FEBRUARY 2017 | ||||
| Excellent | Very Good | Good | Developing | Unacceptable | |
| 4 | $1,515 | $703 | $0 | ||
| 5 | $2,912 | $2,168 | $1,016 | $0 | |
| 6 | $2,539 | $1,148 | $0 | ||
| 7 | $2,930 | $1,373 | |||
| 8 | $3,354 | $1,533 | |||
| TE | $6,543 | $4,129 | $2,108 | ||
In the first table provided by Emirates, you can see that of the 326 (out of 339) staff that have been assessed under your “Performance Matters!” policy, a majority of 291 staff were rated “Good” performers. The first table also shows a concentration of 113 staff in the Grade 5 Salary Band who were rated “Good”.
In the second table provided to us by Emirates, you can see the average dollar amount increases that should have applied to your annual salary rates.
Read together, both tables show that most Grade 5 staff; for example, could be owed an average pay increase of $1,016.00 (based on the current minimum of 1.5% and maximum of 3% percentage increase parameters agreed in Clause 15.7).
Emirates’ “Performance Matters!” appraisals have been regularly completed on an annual basis to determine a variable salary increase payable to an individual employee. Clause 15.7 of the current Agreement states that the increases “…apply to all individual employees effective from 1st April in each year of the agreement”.
The ASU says that when the assessment criteria were set in the previous calendar year (2016) staff would have had a reasonable expectation that a Merit Pot increase would be applied to their salaries in 2017. This is because Emirates was also expecting all staff would work towards the parameters set for them in 2016 under their “Performance Matters!” policy. However, Emirates did not process those adjustments to your wages and salaries.
The ASU believes Emirates should apply Clause 15.7 of the current Agreement now and reward individual staff for their 2016 performance by adjusting wages and salaries according to the assessments completed by February 2017.
Stay Informed
For further information contact your local ASU delegate or ASU organiser, Imogen Sturni, at isturni@asupsvic.org
If you are not a union member now is the time to join – you can join online at www.asuvic.org