I am glad that this thread has gained some traction. To my mind, i've learned more from the contributions on these two pages than I have from a fortnight of broadsheet and national broadcaster coverage on the subject.
I'm truly glad that a forum such as this exists where the truth can be sorted from the spin and sensible debate can prevail. With that said, I'd like to contribute to the debate based on what those affected by the changes have revealed.
The Irish economy is truly in a weak state and to echo the sentiments of the previous poster, those of us employed in private companies are undoubtedly working harder and for less pay (and paying more taxes too) to try to hold on to the jobs we have. In that context, and with Ryanair and the major US carriers competing eith EI for a share of contracting markets (in passenger numbers and importantly, yields) cabin crew should expect to have to work harder.
Clearly they have agreed to do so under the Greenfield plan, so I think we should focus on what the roster changes mean to the workers and to establish whether they are in fact, reasonable changes to working conditions, or, whether they are so disruptive and unreasonable as to be unworkable.
The aggregate numbers don't seem to bad on the face of it. It was mentioned that flight hours have increased by 100 hours, with 850 flight hours equating to about 1900 duty hours. So, a ratio of 2.1:1 duty to flight hours. At that ratio, the additional 100 flight hours mean about 210 extra duty hours. Assuming you do get 2 rostered days off per 7 days, and assuming you get 20 days leave, 9 days bank holidays, that leaves a working days of 232 per annum. so, the changes mean about an extra hour duty per working day. To me, that doesn't seem wildly unreasonable and over the 232 days works out as 8.5 hours duty per day. Obviously there will be peaks and troughs to average that out, and having worked shifts, including 16 hour shifts previously, I can appreciate how tiring long duty days can be, but it does average out over time.
A ban on requesting weekdays off appears outrageous. I think the entitlement to one rostered weekend off per 8 weeks was it, is perfectly reasonable and I would certainly resist those changes.
The double duty London, Paris, Amsterdam example was cited as a change and i'm afraid to my mind, that appears completely reasonable. Yes, it is a 10 or 11h duty day, but is that not fair enough? That alternative is needing one crew per return duty to short range European destinations, and that seems uneconomic to me in the times we live in.
One poster also cited the minimum Atlantic rest as 12 hours and that a crew member could conceivable work the outbound New York on one day and operate the return duty the same night. Given the published EI timetable for NY flights, I don't see how this is possible. Arriving at 13.15 into JFK, the crew would be first available for duty no sooner than 01.15 (with the next flight departing at 17.40) or if they arrive at 18.15 the crew would be available no sooner than 06.15 with the next flight departing at 17.40. so it appears that though the minimum rest is 12hours, assuming the flights operate to timetable, then the actual rest is likely to be closer to 20 hours - 24 hours. It seems to be that the minimum rest change has been designed to cope with disruption to the schedule so that if a crew is later into JFK but the next days flight is expected to depart on time, then they can operate the return leg on time and EI don't have to delay the JFK departure to abide a 24 hour minimum rest rule. That does seem reasonable to me.
Regarding the 3 hour alteration to a duty day - this could go either way. If that is again designed with flexibility in mind so that if the planned flights get badly delayed then the reporting crew can be asked to operate the flights they were expected to (albeit that they'll start 3 hours later and finish 3 hours later) this appears reasonable to me, as delays of that magnitude should be the exception rather than the rule. If of course it's going to become the norm, that you report at 0500 only to be told to come back at 0800 on a regular basis, then that's obviously going to be unworkable, but it strikes me that it's designed with the former rather than the latter in mind.
regarding meal breaks, i'm not familiar with how this operates, but it seems reasonable to me that crew should be allowed to take 30 mins for a meal after 6 hours, or 6.5 hours of duty. However, can the crew take this meal break whilst operating, i.e. in flight? Would staggered meal breaks throughout the day not achieve this, i.e. one crew member down the back on break during one segment of the flight? not sure of the practicalities of this but are management really expecting crew not to consume one iota of food from reporting for duty and finishing duty 10, or 12 hours later? Surely common sense can prevail here. I would be opposed to the idea that the turn around should be delayed by a minimum of 30 minutes for one sector of the day as all crew down tools together for a meal break, but surely this isn't the case and a commonsense solution can be easily negotiated, designed and implemented?
I've read Corsair's posts alluding to the fact that the union was simply playing hardball to get a better deal for it's members. Is this actually a substantive part of the issue? I know that all ground staff got a circa E30k minimum pay off and it's been mentioned that flight crew and cabin crew got nothing (the ground staff deal struck me as ludicrous as the time, what could be one years salary for a person with only two years service is a bit over the top is it not) so are cabin crew just looking for a pay off in lieu of the roster changes being imposed considering ground staff got a sweet deal?
Having read what i've read, there are certainly some legitimate grievances that cabin crew have but it strikes me that they should be resolved through negotiation (tweak the 3 hour duty change rule so that it can only be implemented x times per annum in order to prevent it being abused and to ensure that it's only used for what I suspect to be it's intended purpose of enabling flexibility to operate the schedule in the event of delays, negotiate an agreeable meal breaks entitlement - is it not illegal to deny a worker the right to a break under the organization of working time act???).
The work to rule is resulting in members being removed from the payroll and I think that some mechanism needs to be found to enable crew to return to work (perhaps operating the new rosters on a trial basis to see are they really going to be as bad as they're being made out to be) with a review process after x number of weeks.
This strikes me as a situation where common sense can prevail. There seems to be a lot of reference to management almost as the enemy. I don't think that all managers in EI are making CEO money, and most are probably on reasonable salaries and are just as concerned with their continued employment as the crew, and are making changes to the rosters designed to ensure the continued ability of the company to generate cash with which to pay their salaries.