I have also attempted on many occasions to be a voice for crew to dispute extra duties imposed on us which may be considered illegal. It is unfortunate that crew do continue to be afraid of management and disciplinary action and thus continue to accept 11 or 12 hour duties imposed.
cargoattendant - The latest news is that Virgin Blue is only allowed to operate redeye flights the way they are rostered provided they allow crew to access 'fatigue' days without any consequences. Fatigue days are not sick days and come up as a blank day in Sabre and if you request confidentiality, your DM will not be notified.
The BOC pairings manage to squeeze into the fatigue assessment calculation at sign on but at sign off, most crew are way off the chart due to losing a whole night of sleep and not having had enough sleep in the previous 48 hrs.
There are some crew who manage to sleep when they get into PER at night and then again before the BOC flight. However there are many crew who go without sleep or have to resort to using sleeping aids such as Stillnox, Temazapam and Restavit to get some sleep before these flights.
Why are crew too scared to submit a fatigue report or utilise hotel rest at Melbourne airport after operating these BOC flights even when they've had less than 4 hrs sleep in the past 24 hrs at sign off?
They're afraid of the consequences
