I find it revealing that nobody has come out today and declared, with their hand over their heart, that the offer was "not fair".
And still nobody has offered up an answer of any substance to my question of why the proposal did not get up.
Counter-rotation has suggested that a comparison between now and several years ago should serve to answer my question, but that is not really saying anything.
Olderairhead seems to be suggesting it was voted down out of concern for other pilots across the group or those yet to join the company, but although fanciful, this again still does not really say anything.
A proper answer would be something like "many pilots were concerned about condition XXX, where they would lose YYY, or condition ZZZ, where they felt they would be worse off..." "Insufficient increases to the salary" would also be an answer of some substance.
Of course, it is quite possible that nobody really does have any idea, but that then would just further underline the mystery.
What really was wrong with the offer? As I suggested in my previous post, about 85% of the offer was identical to the existing agreement, 10% was of clear cut improvements, and the remaining 4% was of contentious conditions affecting the Brisbane pilots (such as grey days and days off whilst overseas). And there was the sign-on bonus and the salary increases.
There was only ONE condition where the pilots would be worse off under the proposed agreement - the reduction from 8 weeks to 2 weeks of time where the company would pay accomodation expenses for trainees at their assigned base (this is the 1% that was unaccounted for in the previous paragraph).
Keg,
Thanks for the offer. What you have asked is not a small job but I will endeavour to put up a summary of the T&Cs as soon as I get the time.
Counter-rotation,
You made a reference to "the conduct of the company". Could you please elaborate? If you are referring to the alleged "non negotiated changes" between the draft and proposed CA documents then you have been seriously misled.
On the subject of those "non negotiated changes", by the way, much more needs to be said (and asked), and I will be doing just that in one of my forthcoming posts, as that episode has revealed much about the AFAP, the pilot reps, the company reps and the whole negotiation process.
Olderairhead,
You said:
The 2% per annum is required by law not goodwill. It had to go to the IRC for you to receive it.
Your "required by law" claim is not true. If the IRC had made a ruling to that effect then yes, it would be "required by law", but there was no such ruling as this matter was not heard. It is true that, when the question of annual increases came up, the AFAP appealed to the IRC on this matter but the IRC simply said "sort it out between yourselves".
If the company was truly the "greedy bully" they would have contested it, and would easily have won. They couldn't possibly have lost, as the requirement to make 2% pa increases applied only to the years 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002. If the document had not listed salaries for each year but had instead made a statement to the effect that "salaries will be increased by 2% each year" then that would have been a very different story.
So, whether you agree to the term "goodwill" or not, it remains true that the company decided to make the increases when they were not legally required so to do.
They also decided to make annual CPI increases to all allowances from 2003. So those allowances were static during the years governed by the agreement and only started increasing once it had expired! Is this the behaviour of a "greedy bully"?
As for the return of the more favourable flight and duty limits being the result of the reps "fighting for it" - you are correct, but give the company some credit for not contesting this matter when they actually had a strong case that the adoption of the FMS was in accordance with the consultation requirements of the prevailing agreement.
Pearl is in its current position because of mis-management and years of ripping off the pilot conditions.
Salary wise, the pilots are paid well above the award. What are the conditions you are alluding to?