The Reality of the impending recession
At the moment, the reality is that we currently have 127 cabin crew members more than what we need now that 5 aircraft will be taken off line and used as operational spares. Management is asking all crew who would be interested in taking annual leave, leave without pay, temporary part-time, or perhaps redeployement. No-one should sell out to what is being offered, however, we also need to think of worse case scenario. Redundancies are a reality and no matter how much the management are trying to avoid it, it will happen. I personally don't want to take a pay cut either, however, I know this much, I still want a job with Virgin Blue at the end of the day. If it meant the difference of taking a slight pay cut or loose my job, I know what I would prefer. If you had to leave, imagine how hard it would be to secure another job in this current economic environment.
I have a mortgage to pay, bills to pay, food to put on the table just like a lot of other people in the company, but unlike a number of cabin crew members, I have taken my mortgage out based on my base wage, not on my base wage plus allowances. In fact, your a fool if you over-commit yourself.
The oldies who have been there like myself have less to worry about than the newies. IF they have to offer redundancies then it will be last on first off as confirmed by Mr Tanner in the EBA Roadshows, not based on performance like some DM's have been telling their crew members. I was told by some crew recently that DM's have been informing crew that the lowest performing crew members will be the first to go..... I don't think so.
In a perfect world, I would love to see the company put a clause in the EBA that states if the world economy takes a turn for the better and the company starts to make money hand over fist, that we would be able to get a better remuneration from this point. Hard I know because the company are reluctant to have a clause like this, but hey, its worth trying.
To all those who say that Virgin Blue will never collapse, never say never. No-one ever thought that Ansett would collapse after 63yrs of operation, and yes they were badly managed, but they collapsed when there was no impending recession or financial woes of the world.
The moral of this story is that YES, I too want a better deal. I hate the idea of being paid less for more hours, as I mentioned in my last post, but if I had to choose between taking what is on offer or risk loosing my job, it would be a very hard decision to make. At the moment it is only 127 people from our department at risk, who knows what may happen in 6 mths time when we will have more of an idea of whether we will be in recession or not, but after this time the amount of excess crew could be greater.
I need to read the final document to see what they offer. At the moment I really want to say NO, but I have to see what the document says. I guess it is nice to know that senior management are taking a 25-30% paycut. Anyway, that is my rant for today. Look forward to hearing all your comments on the issue.
Cheers.