APMR,
Good to know you now understand what we were saying; apology accepted re the time involved.
As a suggestion, it might have been easier to call on the pilot negotiators or AFAP for a quick explanation, this will enable you to get both points of view; however, if you only choose to speak to JW or MB, then that's your call.
With regard to the clarifications, you say you can't see a loss for the pilots, I can.
With regard to the days off, you concentrate on non-Brisbane pilots and the fact that they won't be affected. What about the Brisbane pilots, don't we count? I'll explain my point of view with regards to the days off away from home base(to use your words, "low powered days off"). By any account you must now see that these can be changed without consultation, this you admit in you latest post. So, this is surely a loss of conditions. Why is this loss important to the Brisbane pilots? Well, firstly let my acknowledge that, yes, these are additional to our 8 days off at home base(your "high powered days off"). I'll refer you back to one of my previous posts with regard to the amount of time we spend away from home. The days off being fixed whilst we are away from home are important to us for several reasons, we are often able to bring back some normalcy to our lives with these days. We are usually changing hotels on a nightly basis, but in some locations(eg,Perth, Sydney, Singapore, Vietnam) we are based in the same hotel for several nights(sometimes up to 2 weeks). So for example, at these locations it is possible the crews partners to occassionly travel to these locations and see the crew and spend these days with the crew;I understand why the guys want this to happen, but why these lovely Ladies do this, I don't know, I would have thought that they wanted these characters out of their house, I certainly don't need to see them more than I absolutely have too
; therefore, some marital normalcy. These days off whilst on deployment also allow us the plan for some other things than give us a better lifestyle; these include seeing family and friends(only 2 of the crew are Brisbane boys but they still have F&F elsewhere), doing something at a particular location(Sightseeing/ museums/ fill in your whatever) and often that most mundane of tasks, doing the laundry( changing hotels nightly makes these simple tasks difficult). Yes, I acknowledge that we're there to work not satisfy any lifestyle ambitions, but we're human, we have them. If we have certainty for these days it just makes the constant travelling a bit easier.
The grey day issue, again you don't consider the implications on the Brisbane pilots, please refer to my earlier post re Singapore.
The allowances and weekend off. Well, first a bit of background, the reason that seemly so many things are covered by clauses, etc is that the management changes,pilots change, people have different interpretations of what things mean(just think of the time and energy debating the RDO issue between us), so problems occur that need specific clauses to avoid misunderstandings and conflict and state who is entitled to what,both the company and pilots.
With all respect to both JW and MB and their intentions, a statement of intent is a statement that is not included in the CA, yes it's nice to know and it makes us feel good but time will bring changes, the intent will be lost or not acknowledged by those who come later;this has many precedents in the company. As I said in a previous post, if it isn't written down, it isn't enforcable.
I understand that it's often difficult to see these things as you may not have experienced them in your current role but again, talk to the pilot reps, they can explain the how's and why's from a pilot's point of view, not just the company's. Please, consider these things, weigh up the offer not just from your own current situation but from an over all perspective and then vote the way you want.
P.S.
I still reckon those RDO payments of yours are now mine