It continues
This topic has finally been given the attention it has always deserved.
Just to point out, that even though yes many of us from the 2003/2004 intake where told that our position was casual and would not lead to full time employment. One has to be realistic and understand that in the bigger scheme of things, the following has occured despite what Q A N T A S has previously said :
* 32 MAM casuals commence full time employment July 1 2005
* New MAM casuals in 2005, where told that after 12 months with MAM, that they are invited to submit an expression of interest / apply for full time employment.
* Current MAM casuals have been sent letters of expression of interest for full time, for the new financial year.
Yes, now before you all start freaking and getting ready for the POST REPLY button.
The point I'm intending to make is that this is proof that Q A N T A S has said one thing and yet doing another. And we know this is the theme of the Giant Roo, and I'm not for one minute suggesting that more full time positions will come about, but to ease the negativity that people keep posting re: MAM.
Yes, crew are worried about the amount of hours available and they have ever right to, let them post their concern here after all we should be using this as support forum to provide information and to share experience of the situation.
Now on the topic of changing status from NREQ to AV. After talking to crewing, I was told that NREQ status means that you will not considered if work is available, it's not like when we first started when they where understaffed. There is a lot of crew on the books, and making yourself AV is the only way to pick up work when you need it. I have tended to pick up work on AV days and you need to have a business perspective understanding to the whole equation.
Yes QF makes you NREQ 7 days out as they forecast not requiring crew, but we all know the nature of the business. They can not then turn around 2 days out and change your status once things change, because what system could they use, who would they choose to change status??.
Afterall the crew member they may pick to change to AV SPAN may have decided to pick up work at their 2nd job because they are NREQ (if they have one) and therefore create more work for crewing to have to find a suitable available crew member. So look at it realistically, they need surplus of crew and keep their budget in check, so they can only work with what they know and that is the pool of crew who have chosen AV status. Forecasting is one of the most difficult things to do especially when dealing with people, as there is many factors at play, schedules, sick leave, delayed flights, aircraft upgrades etc. They can only factor so much in 7 days out on your availability.
So to further expand on that point above. To keep your job casual and to allow you to have flexibility to work another job, then we want to keep the NREQ status and the freedom to change to AV. If we loose that, that will further restrict us. We have to work with the way the business operates.
I wish people would keep this forum as a positive way to express concern rather than a negative bashing of Q A N T A S and MAM.
Bizzi