Off to the IRC...again
From our glorious leader today:
Special CEO Direct - 08 October 2008
Wednesday, 8 October 2008
As I advised on Friday afternoon, Airservices made an application to the Australian Industrial Relations Commission asking it to intervene and stop industrial action that caused serious disruption to air traffic movements in Sydney on Friday.
A hearing was convened by Vice President Graeme Watson at 5pm on Friday and went late into the night.
As a result of the Commission proceedings Civil Air undertook to post on its web site the following;
“Civil Air does not endorse any refusal to work a reasonable amount of additional hours, on a request other than in accordance with clause 4.3.2 (a) – (e) of the certified agreement, and recommends its members use their best endeavours to ensure any unplanned absences are covered”.
The union also agreed to contact members who worked on the Sydney Approach Group to convey that statement directly to them.
We considered the union statement as a positive step and decided on Saturday morning to withdraw our application.
Unfortunately a number of further disruptions have occurred in the previous few days based around differences in opinion of what constitutes “reasonable overtime” and an unwillingness to cover a number of unplanned absences.
Australia’s national airways system is now regularly being disrupted by some who are trying to pressure the organisation over a wage claim.
These disruptions are creating major delays to airline schedules and, as we saw last Friday, considerable inconvenience to thousands of passengers.
Accordingly yesterday afternoon we filed a further application in the Commission asking for it to assist in settling what we see as a dispute with Civil Air and with some of its members, around how the obligation in the ATC Certified Agreement to work a reasonable amount of additional hours is being interpreted.
We hope that the Commission will be able to list the matter for consideration before the end of the week. This will allow for conciliation on the interpretation of what constitutes “reasonable overtime”. This is a fundamental issue for Airservices.
Unless this issue is clarified we cannot effectively operate a 24 hour national operation while a small number of controllers consider that for them working “reasonable overtime” is optional.
Greg Russell
CEO
STILL all stick and no carrot!