One pilot union for all Australian pilots.
Folks,
Based on many years experience of union membership, there is one thing I can safely say: If there is to be one pilot union it will NOT be AFAP.
And I do think one EFFECTIVE union would be better than the present setup.
Tootle pip!!
Based on many years experience of union membership, there is one thing I can safely say: If there is to be one pilot union it will NOT be AFAP.
And I do think one EFFECTIVE union would be better than the present setup.
Tootle pip!!
https://www.fwc.gov.au/documents/dec...021fwc1012.htm
”For the reasons given below, I have decided to exercise my discretion to consent to the rule change proposed by the AFAP.”
Fair Work approves AFAP rule change.
”For the reasons given below, I have decided to exercise my discretion to consent to the rule change proposed by the AFAP.”
Fair Work approves AFAP rule change.
Join Date: Sep 2019
Location: Middle East
Posts: 43
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
So the next challenge now is for the AFAP to recruit members amongst the QF pilot group, and for them to be recognised as a negotiating agent by QF
Both are going to be difficult. Many QF pilots have experience being 'covered' by the Feds previously when in GA and working for JQ. I would rather go unrepresented then have anything to do with them again - I remember being thrown under the bus industrially several times by them when they did 'deals' with GA employers.
QF doesn't have to negotiate with them under the FW rules. Just has to meet with them. They way they handled the guys who tried to individually negotiate with them during the last EA period is the best guide to how the AFAP will be treated.
One union is not going to make a difference to pilot terms and conditions in Australia. Australian pilots are always happy to work for less, particularly if it screws another pilot - the AFAP wont change that. Exhibit A is the behaviour of Tin Foil Hat 2 on the Alliance thread.
Both are going to be difficult. Many QF pilots have experience being 'covered' by the Feds previously when in GA and working for JQ. I would rather go unrepresented then have anything to do with them again - I remember being thrown under the bus industrially several times by them when they did 'deals' with GA employers.
QF doesn't have to negotiate with them under the FW rules. Just has to meet with them. They way they handled the guys who tried to individually negotiate with them during the last EA period is the best guide to how the AFAP will be treated.
One union is not going to make a difference to pilot terms and conditions in Australia. Australian pilots are always happy to work for less, particularly if it screws another pilot - the AFAP wont change that. Exhibit A is the behaviour of Tin Foil Hat 2 on the Alliance thread.
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: Round the corner
Age: 61
Posts: 98
Likes: 0
Received 5 Likes
on
3 Posts
Ah yes the good old AFAP.
Black tie dinners and conference junkets all for the benefit of the membership of course.
Emails sent to members about changes to IATA protocols whilst a large membership cohort struggles to survive financially having not worked or been retrenched for 12 months or more. Nice touch.
Ill advised industrial action that ultimately negatively impacts PAYING members. But hey some of us elderly people have been there before. At least they are consistant.
One would have to wonder if the MBF is solvent.
What an ongoingly disgracefull set up it is.
MCD.
Black tie dinners and conference junkets all for the benefit of the membership of course.
Emails sent to members about changes to IATA protocols whilst a large membership cohort struggles to survive financially having not worked or been retrenched for 12 months or more. Nice touch.
Ill advised industrial action that ultimately negatively impacts PAYING members. But hey some of us elderly people have been there before. At least they are consistant.
One would have to wonder if the MBF is solvent.
What an ongoingly disgracefull set up it is.
MCD.
Last edited by ManillaChillaDilla; 27th Feb 2021 at 22:13. Reason: I remembered another bad point about the AFAP
Not a chance
In my humble opinion, the behaviour of some within our ranks during the last 12 months answers this question.
There is NO CHANCE EVER of having a United and co ordinated voice for all pilots in this country.
Is it tall poppy syndrome? Is it the attitudes learned during GA? Or is it just Australians looking after No.1 at the detriment to their colleagues?
I don’t know the answer, but I’m very disappointed by what I’ve seen and heard recently.
I just hope I can survive this environment until I can retire.
There is NO CHANCE EVER of having a United and co ordinated voice for all pilots in this country.
Is it tall poppy syndrome? Is it the attitudes learned during GA? Or is it just Australians looking after No.1 at the detriment to their colleagues?
I don’t know the answer, but I’m very disappointed by what I’ve seen and heard recently.
I just hope I can survive this environment until I can retire.
Nor would you want one union looking after us all. We are different competing entities, with different goals and requirements, Having one union would make it very difficult to do the best for anyone, leading to mediocrity for everyone.
GA vs regional vs domestic vs international are all different. Each has its own unique requirements, and require their own representation.
GA vs regional vs domestic vs international are all different. Each has its own unique requirements, and require their own representation.
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: aurora borealis
Posts: 13
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
My memory may even go back somewhat further having been fully ,in executive positions, involved through all the split; it was very, very clear the OSB disdain the OB had for non-airline operations and the fact that their money was being used to support such was decidedly the root cause.
The suggestion the domestics/interstate branches had little time or did little for GA is a total, complete fabrication. One notable case which has always been remembered occurred in Cairns where after many hours spent by the Feds fully pursuing DCA/CAA (whatever it was called at the time) eventually having the operator’s AOC removed following proof of poor/ no approved maintenance where the exhaust system leaked the pilot becoming unconscious due CO poisoning.
Just one of many cases where GA was supported fully and yes, there will always be cases quoted of nonsupport however, there is always two sides to every story.
`Not to spending funds on GA matters, GA got short shrift from Ansett/TAA’: Totally untrue!
`Firstly, it was the Overseas Branch of AFAP that put together the first and subsequent North American style Qantas contracts, not AFAP head office in Melbourne’
The first North American contract applied to Ansett and TAA and it was about 2years later before it was implemented in Qantas following, from memory, the only time Qantas pilots have had a strike. (I stand to be corrected) Then the only reason this strike occurred was because pilots like Dick Holt Ansett), Ted Meredith (TAA), Bart Smithwell (Qantas) and a few others had to put a rod of steel up the Qantas pilots’ backsides to ensure this.
The records particularly minutes of Executive Committee and Convention will tell and entirely different story of the events of the time (Chairman of the Overseas Branch standing on the table at executive or convention pointing his @rse at the chair)
Following the split Qantas pilots went their own way the results showing a slow but continuous deterioration in salary/working conditions decidedly denied by Qantas pilots.
A totaly unified pilot group representd properly by one union is the only way of th efuture
The suggestion the domestics/interstate branches had little time or did little for GA is a total, complete fabrication. One notable case which has always been remembered occurred in Cairns where after many hours spent by the Feds fully pursuing DCA/CAA (whatever it was called at the time) eventually having the operator’s AOC removed following proof of poor/ no approved maintenance where the exhaust system leaked the pilot becoming unconscious due CO poisoning.
Just one of many cases where GA was supported fully and yes, there will always be cases quoted of nonsupport however, there is always two sides to every story.
`Not to spending funds on GA matters, GA got short shrift from Ansett/TAA’: Totally untrue!
`Firstly, it was the Overseas Branch of AFAP that put together the first and subsequent North American style Qantas contracts, not AFAP head office in Melbourne’
The first North American contract applied to Ansett and TAA and it was about 2years later before it was implemented in Qantas following, from memory, the only time Qantas pilots have had a strike. (I stand to be corrected) Then the only reason this strike occurred was because pilots like Dick Holt Ansett), Ted Meredith (TAA), Bart Smithwell (Qantas) and a few others had to put a rod of steel up the Qantas pilots’ backsides to ensure this.
The records particularly minutes of Executive Committee and Convention will tell and entirely different story of the events of the time (Chairman of the Overseas Branch standing on the table at executive or convention pointing his @rse at the chair)
Following the split Qantas pilots went their own way the results showing a slow but continuous deterioration in salary/working conditions decidedly denied by Qantas pilots.
A totaly unified pilot group representd properly by one union is the only way of th efuture
Join Date: Aug 2020
Location: aurora borealis
Posts: 13
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS – Airline Pilots 1964-1969
Pilot industrial relations reflected the continual efforts by pilots to gain a unique status. The Australian industrial relations system, whilst constantly evolving, at no stage really met the demands of the pilots for the recognition they sought. This led to ongoing frustration, the impact of which was highlighted by Blain and Yerbury. Pilots sought to gain a unique status for their occupation with salaries measured in international terms that reflected their view of a pilot's skill, position, responsibility, risk, hours of work, the potential brevity of their careers due to medical requirements and the need to continually re-qualify.
Efforts to achieve this recognition can be traced back to March 1954 when the Pilots Association organised its first stopwork, prior to the commencement of the Full Court hearing to determine the basis of pilot salary determination. The Court undertook an assessment of salaries which recognised the unique or 'sui generis' nature of a pilots occupation as follows
We have already said sufficient to indicate that the profession of an air pilot is "sui generis". It is claimed by the Association, and there is much to support the claim, that there is no profession or occupation in Australia to which an air pilot's position as far as skill, responsibility and other features which bear upon the fixation of a proper salary can be compared with any precision.
Yet the judges determined pilot salaries in line with the standard Australian assessment of the time, the metal trades, with a margin for pilot duties.
In 1959, the pilots association opted out of this system. They dissolved their association and created the non-registered Australian Federation of Air Pilots.
It was not until 1964 that strike action was reverted to, this time in the case of Qantas. A mediator was agreed and a settlement reached, paving the way for an agreement of the method of direct negotiations known as the Bland Agreement. The agreement was modelled upon the American Railway Labor Act and set a formula including aspects such as a cooling off period before direct action.
The claim for an American style pay and bidding system continued and flared again whilst pilots operated under these procedures. In 1966, Professor Isaac investigated domestic pilot salaries, bidding systems, seniority, etc. and recommended a 15% increase in salaries. He considered the salaries of professional engineers in commonwealth employment, third division commonwealth public servants and judges in reaching this conclusion.
Shortly after this report, the domestic pilots achieved a significant victory, agreeing to the introduction of the American styled type weight formula, bidding and seniority systems and a 26% salary increase over 2 years.
However, after the 27 days Qantas stoppage in 1966 to achieve this same outcome, the government amended the Conciliation and Arbitration Act to make the AFAP a declared body under the Act, under a specialist tribunal, the Flight Crew Officers Industrial Tribunal (FCOIT). The government felt, the need for a cessation of the turbulence and disorder in an essential industry such as the airlines traffic.
This was also a most unusual step and was only the second time that a Tribunal had been created, the first being the Coal Industry Tribunal. The pilots had to this extent been brought back into the fold.
This simplified historical outline, analysed in more detail by Blain and Yerbury, reveals that ongoing tensions plagued pilot industrial relations. In pursuit of specific recognition and international relativities, pilots were prepared to pursue their interests through collective bargaining, potentially outside the wages system of the day. Their industrial strength and effective organisation, allowed them to succeed in this approach.
In their struggles to achieve a unique status also won the pilots few friends amongst the union movement and the Labor Party. The AFAP was not affiliated with the ACTU, unlike the majority of Australian unions and was not politicly aligned. The media portrayal of pilots as overpaid elitists, as illustrated by the clippings which interweave this thesis, did little to win the sympathy of fellow unionists. Ongoing tensions existed between the aspirations for equality of other unions and the ALP, government wages policies, and pilot aspirations.
CONCLUSION
In Pilot Horizons, in 1984, the federation manager L. J. Coysh commented,
I know you've heard it before but you must now, more than ever, stick close together. You have an ACTU who is committed to ‘bringing the elitists back to the fold', and an Opposition Government that believes in deregulation because it works well in Supermarkets. Instead of looking at each other through commercially coloured glasses put your arm around each other in 1985. If you've got any affection left show it to the Flight Engineers, Flight Attendants and the Air Traffic Controllers because whether you like it or not the next couple of years are going to be harder rather than easier.
The pilots and their representative organisation highly valued their professional status and their role in the aviation community. This perception was reinforced by technology and the lifestyle implications of a pilots work which emphasised an occupational community. Yet, there was a recognition that pilots alone did not determine their own status or role and their fortunes were effected by airlines and the government through its wages and aviation policy.
These forces, which shaped the pilots identity as an occupational community, also created the tensions of pilot salary determination and how the pilots would respond to their environment through the use of their industrial strength. Government industrial relations and aviation policy were moving in a direction would place greater strain upon pilot aspirations.
For a full history:Google search
Pilot Salary Determination - Whitlam to Keating
A must read for all involved in Pilot Unions.
Pilot industrial relations reflected the continual efforts by pilots to gain a unique status. The Australian industrial relations system, whilst constantly evolving, at no stage really met the demands of the pilots for the recognition they sought. This led to ongoing frustration, the impact of which was highlighted by Blain and Yerbury. Pilots sought to gain a unique status for their occupation with salaries measured in international terms that reflected their view of a pilot's skill, position, responsibility, risk, hours of work, the potential brevity of their careers due to medical requirements and the need to continually re-qualify.
Efforts to achieve this recognition can be traced back to March 1954 when the Pilots Association organised its first stopwork, prior to the commencement of the Full Court hearing to determine the basis of pilot salary determination. The Court undertook an assessment of salaries which recognised the unique or 'sui generis' nature of a pilots occupation as follows
We have already said sufficient to indicate that the profession of an air pilot is "sui generis". It is claimed by the Association, and there is much to support the claim, that there is no profession or occupation in Australia to which an air pilot's position as far as skill, responsibility and other features which bear upon the fixation of a proper salary can be compared with any precision.
Yet the judges determined pilot salaries in line with the standard Australian assessment of the time, the metal trades, with a margin for pilot duties.
In 1959, the pilots association opted out of this system. They dissolved their association and created the non-registered Australian Federation of Air Pilots.
It was not until 1964 that strike action was reverted to, this time in the case of Qantas. A mediator was agreed and a settlement reached, paving the way for an agreement of the method of direct negotiations known as the Bland Agreement. The agreement was modelled upon the American Railway Labor Act and set a formula including aspects such as a cooling off period before direct action.
The claim for an American style pay and bidding system continued and flared again whilst pilots operated under these procedures. In 1966, Professor Isaac investigated domestic pilot salaries, bidding systems, seniority, etc. and recommended a 15% increase in salaries. He considered the salaries of professional engineers in commonwealth employment, third division commonwealth public servants and judges in reaching this conclusion.
Shortly after this report, the domestic pilots achieved a significant victory, agreeing to the introduction of the American styled type weight formula, bidding and seniority systems and a 26% salary increase over 2 years.
However, after the 27 days Qantas stoppage in 1966 to achieve this same outcome, the government amended the Conciliation and Arbitration Act to make the AFAP a declared body under the Act, under a specialist tribunal, the Flight Crew Officers Industrial Tribunal (FCOIT). The government felt, the need for a cessation of the turbulence and disorder in an essential industry such as the airlines traffic.
This was also a most unusual step and was only the second time that a Tribunal had been created, the first being the Coal Industry Tribunal. The pilots had to this extent been brought back into the fold.
This simplified historical outline, analysed in more detail by Blain and Yerbury, reveals that ongoing tensions plagued pilot industrial relations. In pursuit of specific recognition and international relativities, pilots were prepared to pursue their interests through collective bargaining, potentially outside the wages system of the day. Their industrial strength and effective organisation, allowed them to succeed in this approach.
In their struggles to achieve a unique status also won the pilots few friends amongst the union movement and the Labor Party. The AFAP was not affiliated with the ACTU, unlike the majority of Australian unions and was not politicly aligned. The media portrayal of pilots as overpaid elitists, as illustrated by the clippings which interweave this thesis, did little to win the sympathy of fellow unionists. Ongoing tensions existed between the aspirations for equality of other unions and the ALP, government wages policies, and pilot aspirations.
CONCLUSION
In Pilot Horizons, in 1984, the federation manager L. J. Coysh commented,
I know you've heard it before but you must now, more than ever, stick close together. You have an ACTU who is committed to ‘bringing the elitists back to the fold', and an Opposition Government that believes in deregulation because it works well in Supermarkets. Instead of looking at each other through commercially coloured glasses put your arm around each other in 1985. If you've got any affection left show it to the Flight Engineers, Flight Attendants and the Air Traffic Controllers because whether you like it or not the next couple of years are going to be harder rather than easier.
The pilots and their representative organisation highly valued their professional status and their role in the aviation community. This perception was reinforced by technology and the lifestyle implications of a pilots work which emphasised an occupational community. Yet, there was a recognition that pilots alone did not determine their own status or role and their fortunes were effected by airlines and the government through its wages and aviation policy.
These forces, which shaped the pilots identity as an occupational community, also created the tensions of pilot salary determination and how the pilots would respond to their environment through the use of their industrial strength. Government industrial relations and aviation policy were moving in a direction would place greater strain upon pilot aspirations.
For a full history:Google search
Pilot Salary Determination - Whitlam to Keating
A must read for all involved in Pilot Unions.
Not a pilot?
I've recently been made redundant due COVID and right up until the end, my professional association ( union ) was / is standing up for myself and my colleagues in ways not possible as an individual. They negotiated pay rises in the face of stiff resistance whereas when I left Australia onto the "open" market, a non-represented pilot body would see an airline obstinately show you the door. I appreciated insurance deals and protection and a pilot union had a far better look out for my well-being and safety than management. Two good examples being toxic fumes and FTL's. Have an incident which I know can never happen to you, but if it does, your only friends maybe your pilot association and their professional connections. If you are an Aussie pilot flying into China these days good luck with your advice!
I've seen characters who've modelled themselves on your edict. I respect them even less when they come to grief and come crawling to a union they were never a member of for help.
Last edited by Gnadenburg; 1st Mar 2021 at 05:13.
ManillaChillaDilla Post - I remembered another bad point about the AFAP
Our group was once under the AFAP, the employees were the ones who did the bargaining and relations with the company were amicable, the AFAP merely rubber stamped and had the agreement twix company and employees ratified. Some difference arose between the AFAP and our negotiators over some matter, forget what, and the union threatened the employee negotiators that they would send down Norm Gallagher (the youngsters will have no idea who is/was) to sort us out, that prompted a mass resignation from the AFAP and registration of our own union.
We were eventually made staff and had a non aviation boss called us into the conference room and the most informative part of his speech was, verbatim, "we (management) don't give a f..k about you people", as staff he wasn't telling us anything we didn't already know, but it was nice to have it formally confirmed.
Don't ever give up union membership to become staff was the lesson. The real lesson though was when originally under union membership the company was managed by Australians, which in retrospect accounted for the cordial relations at the time, they were then replaced by Americans from head office which is when the change to staff was made and the rot really set in - penny pinching.
INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS – Airline Pilots 1964-1969
Instead of looking at each other through commercially coloured glasses put your arm around each other in 1985. If you've got any affection left show it to the Flight Engineers, Flight Attendants and the Air Traffic Controllers because whether you like it or not the next couple of years are going to be harder rather than easier.[/i]
Instead of looking at each other through commercially coloured glasses put your arm around each other in 1985. If you've got any affection left show it to the Flight Engineers, Flight Attendants and the Air Traffic Controllers because whether you like it or not the next couple of years are going to be harder rather than easier.[/i]
"We learn from history that we learn nothing from history."
George Bernard Shaw
