Pilots of Australia - time to unite - Meeting Aug 23

[blow.n.gasket]

A transcript from the meeting sent to me.
Well worth a read.
I wonder what Clockwork Doll would say about the following?




I am a First Officer employed by Jetstar on the Airbus A-330 aircraft. It is only as a result of great concern about what is happening to the company I work for, the safety of our operation and the careers of my colleagues that I present the following to you.





I must re-emphasise exactly what objections we, the Jetstar pilot group have to FSO 136/10:



* That the creation of a new shell company to employ pilots in Australia will enable the company to subvert the EBA and make it obsolete. It will be able to do this even if it keeps its promise of not 'forcing' pilots onto the new contracts. This is because if the company is allowed to develop this new entity it will be able to control pilots promotion prospects by making them conditional on rescinding the EBA to gain access to positions on what it calls 'growth' aircraft.



* That the creation of a shell company using 'merit based' promotion will render seniority obsolete and tend to encourage nepotism and favoritism rather than using an effective and established method of promotion that mitigates those influences. It will also effect safety because pilots will feel the need to prioritise commercial pressures over safety concerns to appease management and be deemed sufficiently 'meritorious' to be worthy of promotion.



* That the creation of offshore pilot bases operating Australian registered Jetstar aircraft on an Australian AOC into Australia on terms and conditions inferior to the EBA represents the most radical and threatening assault on the profession of airline pilot that we have faced in a generation. We are fully aware of what Jetstar has done to cabin crew and how the company has created 'bases of convenience' in Bangkok and Singapore to crew the majority of its Australian based international flights on third world wages. It would be naive at best to expect the company to have anything different in store for us. If this 'basing' strategy is successful what is to stop the company rolling it out across the network, initially displacing wide body crew and then taking up more and more of our domestic flying? It could do this by rebadging many flight numbers as 'international tags' and crewing them with Singapore based pilots on extended tours of duty similar to what they have done with the flight attendants. Of course our colleagues at Qantas Mainline are watching this space closely and are well aware of the likelihood of this strategy being extended to their operation should we fail to curtail its rollout at Jetstar.



Mr Buchanan claims that in order to grow and to remain competitive we must have a cost base that is relevant to the countries that we operate in. To a certain extent he is correct but he also misappropriates a central part of basic economic theory to justify his position regarding our EBA.



It should be noted that the terms and conditions associated with the Singapore based A330's are significantly inferior to comparable (wide body) operations based out of Singapore. This is not a level playing field. It is attempting to create a competitive advantage by driving down pilot labour costs.



Within Australia our EBA is already the most competitive and flexible in the business. We have provided at least a level playing field with Tiger, and a very significant cost advantage to Virgin and Qantas when it comes to pilot labour costs. We are certainly not 'pricing ourselves out of the market' and the EBA contains enough flexibilities, in its current form to accommodate growth in the airline. Mr Buchanan must also remember that the EBA is a contract; a legal undertaking between us, the employees and the company. That agreement was made to encompass all Jetstar pilots operating under the Australian AOC and it is plainly unacceptable to us to create a new entity which will undermine the provisions of that EBA by reducing the opportunities for promotions under the terms and conditions that we signed up for.



With regards to the overseas basings, our attitude is that we will not allow the use of cheap overseas labour to undermine our Australian wages and working conditions. This is the line in the sand that we draw and we will fight to defend it at all costs. If we fail our careers and industry will suffer irreparably.



In our Australian operation pilot labour costs make up a very small proportion of airline operating costs. Even if through ruthless industrial maneuvering pilot salaries could be reduced to the minimum wage this would have very little effect on the total demand for air travel across the board and therefore on growth in the industry as a whole. If Mr Buchanan was successful in reducing pilot wages in Jetstar alone he would gain merely a short term competitive advantage (and a resultant increase in market share) only as long as it would take for competing airlines to replicate this strategy. What this would do without doubt is to completely destroy our profession and to detrimentally effect safety by driving experienced, well educated and trained operators out of the industry or abroad and replacing them with the cheapest lowest common denominator. All this for a saving of perhaps one percent of the ticket price for passengers. Of course eventually the laws of supply and demand would catch up and airlines would be faced with having to pay substantially more to attract suitable candidates to the industry. By that time however the people responsible will have hoped to have moved on to large-cap publicly listed companies (and the 'big bucks' that entails) having sold their credentials as having broken the unions and slashed labour costs for their former employer.



This is where we see the ugly specter of 'Moral Hazard' appear. You may remember that this amongst other things was seen to be the underlying cause of the GFC. 'Moral Hazard' occurs when people gain benefit from engaging in risky strategies whilst being personally shielded from the risks that those strategies imply. 'Slash and burn' management styles can generate short term improvements to the bottom line for which the managers are duly rewarded through KPI-linked bonuses. By the time the costs associated with those strategies become apparent, the managers responsible have long since 'flown the coop' onto bigger and better things and have left the sorry mess behind for the company's employees, customers and shareholders.



It is therefore our responsibility as an educated, empowered cohesive group to fight this strategy with all our might. It is not just a fight for our own self-interest but an ideological struggle, one that pits the very best aspects of sensibly regulated market based economics and labour relations against the worst excesses of individual greed and self interest cloaked in the banner of laissez faire capitalism.



This is not a fight that we wish to enter into but one into which it looks we may be forced. We have long been a cooperative and efficient workforce and have provided Jetstar management with the efficiencies and flexibilities they require to run a successful and growing business. The latest announcements by management are viewed almost universally as a betrayal of trust and consequently pilot morale and engagement have reached an all time nadir. We are now at the edge of a precipice, one which only decisive and enlightened intervention from Jetstar's new management team can remove us from.



If Jetstar management proceeds on its current course of creating offshore 'bases of convenience' to fly Australian Registered Aircraft on an Australian AOC into Australia on substandard contract conditions and to create an Australian shell company to undermine the Jetstar Pilot's EBA there can be only one foreseeable reaction from the Australian airline pilot community.



That reaction will be bloody and protracted. It will be within the confines of the Fair Work Act but beyond that as you can well imagine for an employee group facing effective annihilation, the gloves will be off. It will not just be the Jetstar Pilots represented by AIPA and the AFAP that will be the protagonists here. This issue has wide ranging implications not only for Air Pilots but for the Australian Industrial Relations System as a whole. It potentially involves the issues of:



* The undermining of the Collective Bargaining System of EBA's (the Fair Work Act's stated preferred method of industrial negotiations) through the creation of parallel shell companies providing labour for an identical occupational classification. This will bring the ALP and ACTU to the table to protect the intent and scope of the Fair Work Act.



* The creation of 'bases of convenience' to effectively undermine Australian wages and working conditions whilst subverting the intent of Australian Immigration, Industrial Relations and Taxation legislation. Once again peak employee bodies, as well as cabinet and quite possibly the federal opposition will have many questions regarding the public and national interest here.



* The well documented costs of having created a hostile and disengaged workforce which although are difficult to quantify, are certainly something that any manager striving for excellence and efficiency would be best disposed to avoid.







So, my colleagues and friends, what is to be done?



I think its time that we start discussing as a group a set of strategies for overcoming the assault on the Jetstar Pilot's EBA and the industry wide implications of FSO 136/10.

Whilst many of these ideas have been suggested, and some are in the process of being adopted, I would encourage everyone who has an idea or strategy to combat this latest threat to share it with us. It is only through our combined efforts and ideas that we will be able to surmount this problem.



* Encouraging union membership to all those that have not yet done so. Without the bargaining power of collective labour and the financial backing to flight the aggressive campaign by commercial management against us nothing will be achieved. To think otherwise would be to delude ourselves.



* Forming a working committee between the pilot unions to reach a basic understanding regarding the organisations' shared opposition to this FSO. This needs to be formalised in writing by the unions and a commitment made to shared financing of the upcoming legal and industrial campaign against the assault on our wages and working conditions. I urge all AFAP and VIPA members, our brothers in Virgin, V Australia and Tiger as well as all of those working in the regionals and GA who at some time wish to work for the airlines to petition your industrial representatives to put aside historical animosities and come together to flight for our future careers.



* Launching a publicity campaign (financed with union money) to educate the general public about the industrial tactics that Jetstar are using to marginalise and disadvantage workers. This may require assistance from the ACTU and other affected unions such as the FAAA. A professional PR/ Advertising company may be needed to offset management's obvious deployment of similar resources against us. History has shown us that to win this battle with the company we must get the hearts and minds of the people behind us. We must convince them that we are fighting the good fight.



It needs to be made abundantly clear that Jetstar's strategy is to offshore Australian jobs by creating shell companies overseas that employ workers on contracts that are often far below minimum legal Australian award conditions. In contrast to traditional offshoring, it must be brought to the public's attention that this practice of Jetstar's usurps and undermines the Australian Industrial Relations system because these workers whilst ostensibly based overseas, are in fact predominantly working out of Australia, without visas and without paying Australian Taxes.



Some of these workers (Jetstar Singapore Flight Attendants) are being paid a base wage of $650 AUD per month! Through no fault of their own they are displacing Australian employees from Australian jobs, because even on Australian minimum wages Australians cannot compete with the slave-wages being offered by the offshore shell companies. The ACTU and all unions must realise that this trend set by Jetstar represents the tip of an iceberg, one that if it is allowed to continue unchecked will inevitably result in other industries being overrun by foreign workers on third-world wages employed within Australia under the thinnest of pretexts whilst flouting our immigration and industrial relations legislation.



The publicity campaign must focus on educating the general public about the safety implications of allowing the undermining of Australian working conditions. For example it should be highlighted that Flight Attendants employed under the Work Choices based 'Team Jetstar' shell company (and those on similar but much more poorly paid overseas equivalents) can be forced to work for up to 20-23 hours continuously without rest facilities being provided. This is happening to front line workers in a safety sensitive environment who are required to operate aircraft emergency equipment and make life-and-death decisions in the event of an aircraft emergency evacuation. As few of these workers have union representation, and the foreign workers in particular operate in a climate of fear and intimidation from their shell company employers, they are being forced into working under conditions of extreme fatigue and putting members of the fare paying public at risk.



Similarly we pilots are fighting the company's proposal to employ pilots outside the existent EBA and promote pilots based on 'merit'. This is in contravention to the currently established practice of promoting based on tenure with the company and meeting competency requirements both prior to being offered promotion, and after promotion training has been completed.



Whilst it may initially sound like a good idea to promote pilots based on 'merit' a closer look at Jetstar management's rationale for this move reveals their true intentions. Airline Pilots, like many other professionals are paid as much to refuse to do certain things as they are to get the job done. Every day in the life of a professional airline pilot is spent evaluating risks and determining the safest course of action. Sometimes this safest course of action will be at odds with the short term commercial imperatives of the company.



A pilot operating within a seniority system will have no incentive to take risks or break the rules to appease management and increase his chances of promotion. Conversely a pilot operating under a 'merit' based promotion system (and particularly in a company that views cost savings as its fundamental value) will be under implicit pressure to 'please' management otherwise he or she will risk their career advancement prospects.



In this way a pilot who should be thinking about safety implications as their first and foremost priority can have undue and systemic pressure placed on them to take greater risks with their aircraft and fare paying passengers.



Jetstar is arguing that the employment of contract pilots will give all pilots 'greater career opportunities'. This is Orwellian Doublespeak for 'pilots who are prepared to accept lower terms and conditions of employment, without the protection of a collective employment agreement- will be offered promotion opportunities. Those who are not willing to prostitute themselves to such an ignoble cause- will see their careers railroaded'. This principal is discrimination against Jetstar EBA pilots plain and simple. We are told that we will not be forced off our existing EBA, but that promotion opportunities will go to employees who are willing to accept inferior contracts. This is an attempt to manufacture the consent of the desperate and the self-interested and to defend the voluntary nature of such a practice is the moral equivalent of legitimising a confession made by a man with a gun to his head.



* We must take active steps to prevent the employment of contract pilots and prevent them from operating on line. We must canvass legal opinion through our unions regarding our legal rights to refuse to fly with contract pilots. Additionally we need to support our unions in launching a legal injunction to prevent the employment of contact pilots on the grounds that it is a consummate breach of our EBA. We must be proactive, otherwise the company's concept of contact pilots will gain the advantage of incumbency and put us in the unenviable position of having to undo what they have done.



* As individuals we need to rise above apathy and make ourselves heard. We should all be writing letters to our politicians, our Local Members and the relevant Ministers and Shadow Ministers. Work Choices has become an ugly word in Australia. No-one wants to be associated with it. We must take steps to ensure that it is relegated to the dustbin of history- where it belongs!