Smartalec888, I'm not sure where you're going to be based or whether you're domestic or international (I didn't read back to see if you said that), but those pay/conditions details you posted there are now obsolete.
That was what stood under the common law contracts initially drawn up for Team Jetstar. But myself and the other 23 in my current ground school (we are the only current Team Jetstar employees) for MEL domestic, have just voted unanimously to accept the new Collective Agreement that has been negotiated between the FAAA and Team Jetstar.
The new five-year agreement has an increased first year base salary of $33,475 with payrises yearly; $34,479 as of Sep '08, $35,513 as of Sep '09, $36,578 as of Sep '10, and $37,675 as of Sep '11.
The flying allowance has also been increased to $11.70 for every block hour. And this will be increased by 3% each year of the agreement.
When taking the flying allowance into account and adding that to the base salary, the overall pay we expect to take home in a year is comparable to the current crew with potential to actually earn more if we end up being rostered the higher number of hours we're able to work in a month. Which are still the same as before by the way; 152 hours rostered over a 28 day period, or up to 164 hours rostered over a month. And I've just received my first roster for January and we are getting rosters by the calendar month like the current crew - not 28 day. It also now states that we can only work 6 consecutive days - I don't think the previous contract had that.
The new agreement also now says that when we take sick days we will be docked a notional day of 7.6 hours from our total sick hours instead of under the previous contract where we would have been docked the amount of hours we were rostered to work that day, whether it had been a 6 hr duty or a 13 hr one.
We also now have a concrete redundancy plan offered to us under the new agreement and there is now also 12 weeks paid maternity leave which I believe is the same as the current EBA. We'll now also get paid at a rate of 1:4 hours for our home standby (live days), which I THINK is like the current crew maybe?
With regards to days off per month, the new agreement now clearly states that the employee will have a minimum of 8 days off in every roster period.
The new agreement still allows for 228 hours of annual leave a year - ie. 6 weeks.
Our notice of termination of employment period has now been extended to 4 weeks once you're off the initial 6 month probation period. 5 weeks if you're over 45 years of age.
The new agreement also spells out clearly that we have a disputes settlement procedure and a consultation clause whereby a communication and consultation process regarding issues that affect employees under this agreement can take place between union reps, the employees and the company. The previous common law contract did not allow for this.
The only area that wasn't changed, is the duty hours and rest periods. Because in order for Team Jetstar to accept the requests put forward by the FAAA, they couldn't come to agree on the duty hours and rest periods so they will be re-negotiated at midpoint of the agreement (in about 2.5 years) after there's been practical experience of cabin crew working under these duty hours and conditions.
The area where Jetstar is benefitting from this agreement is much greater flexibility to use us domestic crew to occasionally operate international sectors because of our longer allowed duty hours and even the flexibility of having crew that won't 'run out of hours' on domestic duties where delays occur.
For the record, our planned duty hours are 12 hours, with operational extensions to 15 hours. But I doubt we'll start seeing days that long until we have enough Team JQ crew out on line to make up an entire crew on any given flight because until then, we'd have to be in line with the Jetstar crew we're crewing alongside for the day. These kind of hours are going to allow us to do hops like MEL-DRW-SIN or MEL-PER-SIN and also to operate on some international sectors in addition to our mainly domestic flying duties.
Planned rest period is 12 hours following a duty of 0-14 hours with operational reductions to 10 hours. Following a duty of 14-17 hours the rest period will equal the duty hours with operational reductions to 12 hours.
We said yes to this agreement because most areas were improved upon from the previous common law contract and also because a union-negotiated COLLECTIVE agreement was always going to be better than an 'individual vs the company' style contract.
All of us in the current ground school are having a ball
- a real awesome time, and are looking forward to getting out on line. Some of us were initially concerned with the longer duty hours and stuff, but there's nothing we can do about that - ALL new crew will be employed under Team JQ and there's no changing that.
None of us were going to knock back this job based on the principle of fighting for 'what is right'. Because unless EVERYONE rejects the offer on the table and it ends up being just a few that protest by knocking back the job offer, then Jetstar isn't going to change a THING! That's why I see this as inevitable. I do at least take SOME comfort in knowing we have a LOT more safeguards and assurances in place with the new Collective Agreement (which by the way, took effect from 21 December) - more things that are in writing, rather than all the loopholes or loose ends there were with the common law contract.
All of the crew that we've spoken to already and the managers that have been coming in to speak to us have been really great
- awesome people and a friendly working environment is what we've all noticed about Jetstar and we all feel really welcome in our new jobs. No one so far has given us a hard time about the fact we're Team Jetstar nor do I feel we'll cop that when we're out on line, despite what current crew's personal opinions may be.
So Smartalec888, if you are starting ground school in the upcoming weeks and you've only got that common law contract so far, then rest assured you'll have the new agreement posted out to you soon.
It's the way the company is headed and you've just gotta go with it or be left behind I say - me and my friends at ground school are looking forward to the massive expansion that Jetstar will be undergoing in 2008.
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