Originally Posted by
Kaboobla
Its so they can keep the majority of the longhaul pilots stood down indefinitely without redundancy provisions applying.
At some point in the next 3-5 years, where mainline pilots are still stood down, but Network, Cobham and Alliance pilots are flying full lines and being paid their full salaries, somebody will challenge the refusal of QF to pay redundancy packages in court. The challenge being that those stood down pilots are actually redundant under the fair work act (they are actually redundant right now TBF)
That court case will fail if the complaining pilot can be proven to be have been 'offered' a position in another 'group company'.
Unfortunately for QF, that’s not how the IR laws work. You can’t offer a job on lower T&Cs and sidestep redundancy provisions, and you certainly can’t make it in another entity.
QF, with every other business using stand down provisions, will be in a precarious position if the workforce isn’t being paid as per their awards once the government restrictions to their trade are lifted. Passenger demand / wrong size aircraft / load factors etc have nothing to do with it.
If QF choose to remove a fleet / destination / entity, it’s a commercial
decision - stand down can’t and won’t apply.
Take emotion out of the argument - mainline / alliance / network / JQ / etc are just business cases - the only thing that will save the employees is in their award.
The QF A380 / 747 pilots will be just fine - they have a strong award signed off during the pandemic - fair work won’t touch it.
Spreading FUD is the best the company can do to make some of them leave on their own accord - LWOP / VR / a job at a group airline may convince some (SOs especially) to voluntarily leave the comfort and safety of their award, thus reducing the cost once stand down is over.
With vaccines around the world doing better than hoped, and the numbers of infected falling fairly rapidly, it won’t be as long as most predict.