To highlight the distrust of FAAA. I Just want to know, will the FAAA Intl have a better track record.
I think after reading if you have not already, you might understand the questions I have previously posed.
A case of cabin fever strikes Qantas April 21, 2007
In the new airline workplace, old allegiances seem to count for little, writes Scott Rochfort.
Maurice Alexander has kept a low profile since he quit his job as an airline union official 10 years ago. His office phone number is not listed; neither is it on his company’s website. Many of the hundreds of people he’s employed over the years have no idea what he looks like.
The only contact detail provided is an email address where budding flight attendants – or airlines seeking casual staff – can send Maurice Alexander Management (MAM) a question.
Alexander’s labour hire firm made a $1.57 million pretax profit last financial year from its main activity of supplying lower-paid casual flight attendants to Qantas.
The firm was set up soon after Alexander left the union in 1997 and has an estimated 750 casual flight attendants on its books in Sydney, Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne.
The irony is not lost on some that the biggest workforce of potential strike breakers ever mustered by Qantas was done with the help of a former union boss – and with the consent of his former union.
The former senior industrial officer from the domestic division of the Flight Attendants Association of Australia has also kept in close contact with many of his former union comrades. And not only from the other side of the bargaining table.
The Herald has uncovered an apparent conflict of interest within the domestic union. Aside from the fact that the association and the former union official still rub shoulders by sharing office space in Melbourne, Alexander lists a fellow labour hire firm, Flight Force, as one of his former ‘ ‘clients’’.
Flight Force was set up in January 2000 by senior officials of the union to provide casual labour to the now defunct Ansett. There are concerns the union’s involvement in the labour hire industry is at odds with its main task of representing the rights of flight attendants.
According to records obtained by the Herald, the company’s directors included the former association president Narelle Gill and two union branch secretaries.
The ‘‘non-profit’’ Flight Force posted a $495,495 pretax profit in the financial year before it folded after the collapse of Ansett in 2001. The union’s industrial relations manager and powerbroker, John Playford, was also a director when the company was founded.
Playford did not return the Herald’s calls to answer questions about the labour hire outfit he helped set up. Nor would Playford explain his relationship with Alexander or the activities of the business consultancy he set up with his wife in 1998, Stratagem Consultants.
Coincidently, Playford’s consultancy uses the same Sydney accountant as Flight Force used.
The only domestic union official willing to speak was its assistant secretary, Tom Snowball, who declined to discuss the apparent conflicts of interest between the now defunct Flight Force, Alexander’s company and his union.
‘‘Unfortunately I’ve been involved in the union since 2002 so it’s difficult for me to go there,’’ he says. But he did say that unlike other labour providers Flight Force and Maurice Alexander Management were ‘‘prepared to show they are prepared to negotiate and discuss an EBA in good faith’’.
Snowball declined to say whether the union effectively negotiated with itself when Flight Force was up and running. ‘‘I can’t comment on Flight Force.’’
Nor would Snowball discuss the growing dissatisfaction many short-haul flight attendants feel towards the union. This was illustrated when 89 per cent of Virgin Blue cabin crew recently voted against a new five-year enterprise bargaining agreement put to them by the union. The agreement proposed the airline hire more casual cabin crew to ‘‘assist in the efficient operation’’ of Virgin Blue.
Snowball has declined to comment on speculation Alexander’s company or another labour hire firm aligned with the union may try to hire out crews to Virgin Blue. ‘‘I am not in a position to comment on the Virgin EBA at all,’’ he says.
Snowball sees no problem with the current union regime. ‘‘We’re proud of the staff we’ve got,’’ he says.
The union has argued that the conditions and pay of Maurice Alexander Management casual staff are ‘‘in line’’ with Qantas full-time short-haul cabin crew, who are paid considerably less than international flight attendants.
The union failed to mention that full-time crews are paid a guaranteed 140 hours a month, and may be rostered to work 123 hours. Full-timers are paid the extra hours to cover the flight delays that may incur. Casuals are paid for the hours they work. They are not guaranteed a minimum amount of work.
Unlike full-time Qantas crews, casuals are not entitled to a pay rise for each year served. They get a small loading on top of a flat first-year rate to compensate for the holidays and sick leave they are not entitled to.
The union has raised no objections to Maurice Alexander Management recently engaging a new batch of casuals, despite Qantas announcing plans to lay off fulltime cabin crew due to a ‘‘surplus’’ of staff.
The new intake of crew is also putting a strain on longserving casuals. Several Maurice Alexander Management casuals who contacted the Herald say their hours have been dramatically cut in recent weeks, with the newer ‘‘contract C’’ staff taking up more of the work.
Some casuals say their hours have been cut in half to about 60 to 70 hours a month. This equates to less than $500 a week. Some casuals say they are under pressure to find other work despite having to be on call to Qantas most days.
The new contract C staff, who are reportedly taking more work from the other casuals, can request only three days off each month. They have to be on call the rest of the time with no guarantee of work.
They also have no choice over their rosters and are being deployed on international routes. Many of the contract C staff speak Cantonese, Mandarin and Hindi, and are being hired to replace higher-paid international Qantas cabin crew on flights to Shanghai, Hong Kong and Mumbai.
The move has inflamed tensions between the shorthaul union and the international division of the union, which is considered a separate body.
As part of a ‘ ‘divisional flying agreement’’ struck between Qantas and both unions, Qantas has the discretion to choose which crews fly on 45 per cent of its Boeing 767 and Airbus 330 services.
The secretary of the international union, Michael Mijatov, has protested that the increased use of casuals has come at the expense of higher-paying and more secure full-time jobs. The airline has cut its number of full- time long- haul cabin crew by 1200 since 2000.
But the domestic union has raised no objections. ‘ ‘ We don’t feel that it’s being used inappropriately,’’ Snowball says of the flying agreement.
Alexander did not return the Herald’s calls. But in response to a Herald report this week, he issued a memo to his staff arguing that the article ‘‘appears to be an attempt to undermine an arrangement which has provided a positive benefit to both casual flight attendants and Qantas’’.
‘‘I request that MAM flight attendants continue to excel in the provision of outstanding customer service as representatives of an iconic Australian brand and ask that you are not diverted by irresponsible press coverage,’’ the memo said.