Union membership?
 

http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/...994998646.html
I hope you can open the above link. It is relevant to us in UK as it mirrors the struggle of Ryanair pilots. If this type of employment gathers pace across the industry then we/you can kiss goodbye to BALPA et al.
Don't say, 'it can't happen here because the law says so', because it might!
Laws are made to be broken, remember?
Start the defence fund now, I say.
Below is the text of the article in todays Sydney Morning Herald.
Qantas has launched one of its biggest assaults on the union movement, with its low-cost Jetstar subsidiary confirming plans to put all its new pilots and maintenance staff on individual workplace agreements.
Barely one week since the collapse of the $11.1 billion Macquarie Bank-led bid for Qantas, Jetstar confirmed it was planning to hire 200 pilots and 50 aircraft maintenance engineers on Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs) in the coming months.
"Jetstar as an organisation needs the flexibility to grow and we believe that a flexible workplace agreement allows us to do that," Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway told the Herald.
This will represent the biggest single intake of staff on AWAs Jetstar has ever made. It already has 90 long-haul flight attendants on individual agreements after snubbing the international arm of the Flight Attendants Association last year.
Mr Westaway argued Jetstar staff on the new five-year contracts would be paid the same as existing Jetstar pilots and engineers on enterprise bargaining agreements (EBAs).
Staff on AWAs will be subject to annual pay reviews compared to the automatic pay increases staff on EBAs can get.
"If the airline performs extremely well, or better than forecast, there's obviously upside for new recruits on these agreements," Mr Westaway said. "It's about embedding a performance culture in the airline."
Jetstar has 400 pilots and 150 engineering staff on EBAs.
Sparking union fears Jetstar's adoption of AWAs could become more widespread in future, Mr Westaway said the agreements would be needed to assist the airline's introduction of Boeing 787s into its fleet from August 2008. "We have to move now in respect to the 787 program. We do need to push the button and move now," he said.
Unions fear Jetstar's growing use of non-union staff could eventually spread to Qantas.
"It's a union-busting activity," said the general manager of the Australian International Pilots Association, Peter Somerville.
"It has nothing to do with flexibility, it's about peeling employees from their collective representatives." Mr Somerville questioned the timing of the Jetstar announcement, given the Industrial Relations Commission is also due to hand down a ruling on whether the union had the right to represent Jetstar crews. At present, Jetstar pilots are represented by the company-endorsed Jetstar Pilots Council.
Mr Somerville said the move to put pilots on AWAs raised safety concerns. "They are willing to pit pilot against pilot. In a safety culture that is a major, major mistake and a flaw in their plan. The bean counters just don't get that."
Mr Somerville suggested the Jetstar announcement was a "smokescreen" aimed at diverting attention from Qantas senior management, who are now trying to wash their hands of the $11.1 billion APA takeover they previously endorsed.
But the move follows Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon's warning in March that the airline needed to change, "whatever its ownership structure".
There are suspicions Qantas may even attempt to "wet lease" 787s and crews from the lower-paying Jetstar subsidiary.
Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association federal president Paul Cousins said the move to AWAs was a deliberate attempt to sideline the unions.

I am just a little surprised that no-one has commented on the above post. As I see it, MOL and Ryaniar are the thin end of the wedge in Europe just as Westway and Jetstar are in Oz. The union laws in Oz are more draconian and restrictive as far as employers are concerned than any laws we have in UK. If they can ride roughshod over the Oz law and get away with it, as they have, then believe me, MOL will do exactly the same here.
Once other airlines see what he is getting away with, you will be next in line.
I would not ignore this threat if I were you.
Complacency is not something you pilots are generrally so good at!
Me, I'm about to retire to the sunshine and don't really care one way or the other, but you have been warned.

rubik
 

The whole management culture within the "QF group" is one of divide and conquer starting at the top and filtering down through the ranks.
The current industrial relations laws are allowing these managers to slowly but surely destroy T&C's that currently exist for the staff for what would appear to be of no benefit other than the individual section managers fulfilling their budgetary promises to their respective peers and receive their annual bonus.:ugh:
One thing I can assure you is that any staff on an AWA will definitely NOT share in any possible future profit sharing aside from a modest pay review.
The fat bonuses are there for the board/upper management to roll around in, just look at what the failed APA member Macquarie Bank paid their executives this time around. Topped put at $33M AUD this year.:eek:

My point exactly! How easy it is to ignore what is happenning on the other side of the world, but this time it is happening on our own doorstep here in GB. It may be happening to 'them' (Ryanair) at the moment but how long before it begins to happen to you?
The latest money saving wheeze from FR is that the pilots have to provide their own gash bag in the cockpit. I kid you not!
You think they are not serious about screwing the pilots in every possible way? Think again.

What a load of crap. The white bag is not for gash it 's for the captain to do himself in after a heavy day listening to a whinging Fo.

depresive man.

999, you have obviously not read all the threads about Ryanair in the past or you would know that the requirement for the pilots to provide the rubbish bag on the flight deck is just one in a long line of efforts by the management to make the life of the pilot more miserable on a daily basis.
Many years ago Ryanair paid for medicals, uniforms, simulator details for upgrades, hotel accomodation when on duty/sim, mileage when travelling to the sim and so on.
Over the last seven years all of these have been taken from the pilot, without a by your leave, and now all these expenses fall on the individual.
I am allowed a plastic bottle which I may fill with water from a tap provided by Ryanair in the crewroom, which is filmed on CCTV by the way, and that is it.
One thing I don't have to do is listen to whingeing FOs because they are generally a fairly cheerful bunch, I find.
Now tell me 999, does the airline you work for make you pay for any or all of the list I have written above? If not, then keep your silly remarks to yourself.
One day, in the not too distant future, all of you will be treated this way.
Depressing, yes, and quite rightly so.
Depresive, whatever that means.................I bet you are.