AFAP Qantas Pilot Council Briefing No.14
A friendly reminder; if you are not yet a member but would like to receive our briefs, please email: membership@afap.org.au with the subject line “Please add me to the QPC mailing list”.
Short Haul EA Update
As most of you would no doubt be aware, we have been advised that the AIPA CoM have voted to not endorse the Company’s Short Haul EA offer that was given in-principle agreement by the AIPA negotiating team.
Based on our survey data, we believe the AIPA CoM’s rejection of this offer is an accurate representation of the pilot sentiment towards the offer. As it stands, the Company’s EA offer does not have the support of either the AFAP QPC or the AIPA CoM.
As we have mentioned many times in our briefs, our members have identified (via survey data) two main areas of the EA that must be improved:
- Remuneration that includes tangible, guaranteed pay rises in-line with inflation; and
- Structural changes that ensure sustainable working conditions that protect the welfare of pilots.
We believe that making adequate changes to these two areas of concern in the EA would:
- make Short Haul a more sustainable place to work and operate; and
- secure the future pipeline of pilots that choose to work in Short Haul operation; and
- increase the likelihood of pilots staying in Short Haul for longer periods of time; and
- help address crewing shortfalls that are currently being overcome by the Company pressuring new recruits to take positions in Short Haul via questionable means.
It is understandable that the expectation of Company negotiators coming into the process may have been that the historically Company-dominant exchanges would continue given recent EA negotiation history.
However, we are now negotiating in a vastly different legal, political and financial environment to what existed in previous SHEA negotiations. Since those negotiations, Short Haul pilots have experienced unprecedented increases in inflation and by connection, unprecedented increases in the cost-of-living. They have also made considerable concessions through the Short-Haul variation.
It is important these factors are acknowledged and accounted for by the Company in the EA, in an honest and transparent way. Relying on making the remuneration gains through mechanisms that are not guaranteed to generate the advertised gains is entirely insufficient.
We again highlight that if the Company were genuine about their willingness to offer their advertised ~8.5% upfront remuneration increases, they would guarantee those gains, so that regardless of what operational changes are made, Short Haul pilots would receive the pay-rises promised to them. We believe without guarantees, the increases are not genuine.
Lastly, we believe the concessions contained in the SH EA offer are vast, have significant and long-lasting impacts and are insufficiently accounted for.
Offsets desired by the Company such as direct entry FO recruitment would remove the leverage pilots have to ensure Short-Haul is a sustainable place to work. It would enable the Company to crew Short-Haul ‘off-the-street’ instead of addressing the glaring issues present in the agreement, that if addressed, would ensure a steady flow of pilots between hauls.
In summary, we believe the current SH EA offer falls short of the required remuneration, does not offer sufficient guarantees around the advertised remuneration benefits derived from structural changes, and contains significant and long lasting concessions that are not adequately accounted for.
We will continue to meaningfully engage with the Company, fully cognisant of the fact that negotiations always contain compromise, and we remain committed to a negotiated outcome.
Next Steps in the SH EA Negotiation
At this point in the negotiation, we believe the Company has two possible options it may choose to take:
Return to the negotiating table and meaningfully engage to determine what needs to improve in the EA offer to meet the requirements of SH pilots. This would show sincerity in the Company’s commitment to engage with the pilots’ union representatives; or
Put the current SH EA offer to a pilot vote regardless of the fact is has not received support from either the AFAP QPC or the AIPA CoM.
We believe that SH pilots would overwhelmingly vote against the current SH EA offer if the vote were to proceed as is. However, we also believe that the Company would anticipate and plan for precisely such an occurrence.
With these scenarios in mind, it is worth members being aware of the various IR ‘tactics’ that have been utilised by the Company at similar stages of previous negotiations. We note that in other employee groups within Qantas, the Company removed conditions following a no vote. Subsequently Qantas has then re-offered those same conditions again.
As we have highlighted in previous briefs, this tactic appears to be an attempt to elicit support of an EA offer via fear. We see this as a form of manipulation and view it extremely negatively. We do not feel it aligns with the purported philosophy of the new Company management team.
We encourage pilots to remain calm, analytical and critical when reviewing any Company EA offer material. Understanding the current negotiating environment is essential to making an informed decision. It is also pertinent to highlight the normality of back and forth negotiation in this context.
Long Haul EA Update
Although the discussions of late have recently been centred around SH, it’s important to know that the AFAP have been working hard behind the scenes on a number of important LH issues. These issues include:
- LH EA Survey: The survey will soon be released. Both the LH EA Negotiation Team and the LH EA Survey Team, which includes a focus group made up of Qantas LH AFAP members, have been working closely together to deliver a survey that will be essential in framing and directing the LH negotiation.
- Member enquiries regarding rostering, buckets, training away from base, allowances and contactability. We are working towards productive resolutions of all of these issues. Our working relationships with key operation personnel in Qantas enables us the ability to pursue positive resolutions for the various individual issues. Issues that cannot be resolved in this manner proceed down the legal path.
- Blanklines - It is disappointing to see the number of blank-line holders has risen once again to almost 30% in some categories. The persistence of the incorrect resourcing in these categories continues to result in pilots paying the price with blank-lines and low-lines. We have raised this on multiple occasions with the Company and have been working on a more permanent protection solution.
Summary
Lastly, it has been very promising to hear from our members asking questions and offering solutions and suggestions. It’s also encouraging to see that the QPC is receiving regular enquiries and suggestions from non-AFAP members. The QPC encourages both members and non-members to get in touch via our dedicated mainline email qpc@afap.org.au.
For any general inquiries regarding this update or other matters at Qantas please contact the AFAP legal and industrial team of Senior Legal/ Industrial Officer Pat Larkins (patrick@afap.org.au), Senior Industrial Officer Chris Aikens (chris@afap.org.au), or Executive Director Simon Lutton (simon@afap.org.au).
Also, members and non-members alike can access our previously published briefs via the following link: https://www.afap.org.au/membership/join/afap-qantas-membership.
Regards,
AFAP Qantas Pilot Council
Michael Egan - Chair
Mark Gilmour - Vice- Chair
Daniel Kobeleff - Secretary
Michael Armessen - Committee Member