The 2010 words of Sue Bussell (Executive Manager, Industrial Relations, Qantas)come flooding back: '
Turbulent Times - a practitioner's perspective of Industrial Relations in Aviation'
Page 7 (formatted for easier reading)
These developments raise a number of issues for practitioners. First, it has introduced a degree of complexity in reconciling legislative minimum standards with some long standing entitlements in enterprise agreements, as well as in effect removing from the scope of bargaining a number of core employment conditions. Whereas in the past the industrial parties had full discretion on how they structured benefits such as annual leave and personal leave in enterprise agreements, since WorkChoices, and similarly under the FairWork Act, this is no longer the case. Second, having accessed the Corporations power for the direct federal regulation of employment conditions there is the pot
ential to further blur and expand entitlements based on social and employment policy such as paid maternity leave.
Third, despite having expanded the safety net there is not yet a settled consensus on whether this safety net is indeed an acceptable set of minimum conditions to apply to the workforce, though the modern award process in Fair Work Australia has certainly advanced this understanding.
Finally, in effect this expanded safety net has changed the territory in which the debate over the respective role of individual and collective agreements under Work Choices occurred – that is the expanded safety net has reduced –or arguably removed - the vulnerability of the individual when bargaining directly with an employer.
The recent review of Modern awards was an opportunity for the distinction between a safety net and conditions bargained in individual enterprises to be tested. The Qantas group played a significant role in the review of the aviation industry awards. Although it might appear that an easy approach for Qantas would have been to stand back from the process because raising the industry standard would impact on our ‘low cost’ competitors more than on Qantas mainline, our view was that the long term competitiveness of the industry in Australia required that aviation industry awards remained as true Industry minima.
Otherwise, we would have become potentially less competitive with international carriers operating to Australia, and we also needed to protect our subsidiaries Jetstar and QantasLink – QantasLink provides services to regional Australia and has some community service obligations. The challenge was significant with some unions taking a very different approach to the concept of a safety net being a minimum standard. We had to provide
comprehensive data and the initial decisions of the Tribunal were then subject to a Ministerial request for review. However in the end, under very difficult circumstances the Tribunal got it right for this industry. There was no evidence of any individual being worse off and the awards provide for a fair minimum standard safety net that is a foundation – not a replacement - for collective bargaining
Yeh right. It wasn't a replacment then, but it is now that "circumstance have [been made to] changed."
Best to break out the
Air Pilots Award 2010 as that appears to be the long-term game plan & future for the entire industry.
The game is simple. Send the enterprise to the wall, cry poor and implement by force the base award with the assistance of the Federal Government, one industry at a time, using the previous case as a justification. This would appear to be the agenda behind the SPC media spin.