While Qantas IR’s tactic is cynical and transparent, it is in accordance with the letter of the law.
I hear you, and your statement is true, but my tongue in cheek reference to the ‘bundle of contractual rights’ at the end of my post was to emphasise that lately, being in accordance with the letter of the law has not worked out well for Qantas. They were legally correct there, but even the most senior politicians started talking about passing the pub test. Additionally, they had Andrew David’s decision to outsource the ground jobs run through legal and that has worked out to be an expensive mistake.
Unfortunately the definition of good faith bargaining is incredibly narrow and does not rule out their conduct.
I don’t really agree with that. I think it s a judicious call as to whether, during bargaining ( ie the day before the application), Qantas ‘engaged in conduct that undermined collective bargaining’. ( ie was not bargaining in good faith).
It could be thought of this way;
24 hours before the application for IB, the process of collective bargaining was underway and ongoing….. at that moment, while the pilots were bargaining in good faith, were Qantas bargaining in good faith when they were setting themselves up for success in the Fair Work process by retracting provisions? Or were they no longer playing their part ( their required by law part) in the good faith bargaining process? Some on the bench may consider that Qantas had in fact finished negotiating at that point and was concentrating on positioning themselves for something else. That is not in good faith.
So at this point, the incredibly narrow definition of good faith bargaining becomes nothing more than ….an opinion.
Thoughts?