Same but different easternboy
We were told during our last EBA the same thing..."Oh, Career Progression has nothing do with this agreement", etc...only to be told that the company wanted a particular rest requirement reduced in order to meet schedule requirements.
Until this was met, no CP for us was the general hint!
SO...we developed a standing dispensation for this particular destination, rather than write it up in the EBA. Since then, we've stopped overnighting as a result of Jetstar, and have managed to retain CP in the absence of this trade off.
So while we traded off up to 30 minutes off our rest for CP, at only one of our destinations, we were still told by Qantas..."but this still has nothing do with the Agreement"...yeah...right!
We have a separate progression agreement that mirrors yours, but no one can seem to explain why we couldn't be included in your agreement. I believe it may have something to do with the original agreement dating back to the mid-nineties, and as we weren't a party to that agreement back then, we needed to have our own.
As Eastern, Sunnies and Southern all existed back then, you all came along as part of the QF takeover of Australian, et al. We, on the other hand, came along a few years later as you know - and so, a new agreement was developed for us.
20 for Eastern - yeah...like they'd want to release that many at once! Not that you're not owed it, I know - you guys work real hard for little reward!
The thing I can't understand (well I do, but I don't have to like it!) is why MAM crew got preference over regional crew for the recent round of permanent slots in Perth?
No offence intended to the MAM crew, far from it. And yes, I acknowledge that the extra training is a dis-incentive for the company - but compared to what? The multiple schools of MAM crew they've been churning out? You still start on year 1 salaries and so on...so what's the deal?
Why is it that QF won't willingly honour it's industrial agreements with its' subsidiary airlines, and yet pick up 32 people from a contractor for permanent work? Is it the leave and years of service accruals putting them off? It wouldn't be the pay or benefits - you start at the bottom again, you get B scale bands and your staff travel resets to when you join S/H!
Off to have a bex, and a nice lie down.