wirgin blew, in relation to the company paying an allowance in breach of the ATO ruling, it depends on how literally you interpret the ruling.
The ruling states that
'the employee must sleep away from home' for travel allowances. When you consider that crew are required to rest away from home before a red eye and sign on after dinner time and then work through the breakfast period, it would be difficult to argue to the Commissioner that crew would not be disadvantaged if they did not receive the overnight allowance.
For those interested, the
ATO Tax Determination 2006/43 states that the reasonable amount for meal allowances for salaries under $84,250 is $94.30. The proposed changes for the maximum meal allowance available in the new EBA is
$90.68, which is
$3.62 less than the amount deemed reasonable by the ATO for the 2006-2007 income year.
We currently receive
$91.26 for overnights AND we receive meals on board the aircraft. However, this will change with the new EBA as we will not receive meals on board the aircraft under
ANY circumstances
If red eyes were operated as a shuttle, then we would not be able to claim reasonable expenses for meals as we would not have satisfied the requirements of the ruling for travel allowances. Of course, you could argue that this isn't all that different from our current day trips and that you don't even eat the meals on board.
However, when you consider our current conditions and do some simple math, it isn't hard to see how much worse off you would be under the new EBA for a 12 hour duty. Currently we cannot be rostered for a duty that exceeds 9 hours 45 minutes, we get overtime after 9 hours and we get meals on the aircraft.
Based on rough estimates, we would be
$83 worse off in this scenario (3 crew meals lost approx. $30, 1.5 hours less overtime approx. $41, time and a half after 10.5 hours instead of double time after 9 hours 45 mins approx. $12). IMHO, a 12 hour duty (2.25 hours longer) without any meals, 1.5 hours less overtime pay and only time and a half instead of the double time we currently receive is
NOT a step forward
Are we really better off under the new EBA?