Have you ever considered that it may cost you a loss of 10% pay to get 5%? ie,deduction of average o/t worked and 4 hour stoppages. At this stage from my rough workings that some Engineers may have already lost the first years 5%
I note your points, but up till now the only LAME's to have "lost" anything are the ones who have taken part in a work stoppage. 4 hours pay per stoppage. Not being involved in overtime certainly cannot be classed as 'losing" something. This is work over and above the allocated 38 hour week and by not helping out a poorly managed, understaffed system is not a loss. Sure, there are some amongst the LAME's that love to come to work on days off and stay back after shift. They get payed extra money for doing so. At most stations/Bases you will generally find that it's the same core of blokes who do the overtime - good on them and good luck to them - they've decided for whatever reason that they will give their free time up in exchange for extra money. Some need the money for "noble" causes such as putting kids through school, child support, donations to charity etc.
However there would be an equal amount of this 'core' group whom do overtime to spend the money on wine, women, hookers, beer, cars, gambling etc, etc. This just about covers the "core" of people whom are involved in regular overtime yet don't forget that as always there's a majority who are more than happy with their 38 hours a week (and in some cases a 'rostered' overtime component of approx 0.5hrs/week) For example, in the last 2 years, I have not spent one extra minute at work than my roster allows for. I work hard and give everything while I'm there, yet just have other things happening in my life and don't have a reason to be there when my employment conditions doesn't call for it. I have no doubt that as a gruop we're definitely worth a 5% pay rise and as our agreement would be backdated for the past 18 months, the overtimers would get this increase on all their past O/T. Believe me when I say that there are lots and lots of LAME's such as myself whom don't need nor want overtime and after the start of the overtime bans some of the regular 'core' of overtimers have found other things to do and ways to manage without the O/T money and will probably never go back to it.
