Jetstar Freezes Contract Hirings

[Mick F]

From The Australian

JETSTAR has moved to head off a stoush with its pilots by putting on hold plans to put new hires on permanent part-time contracts.

But it has warned that a decision to freeze new recruitment while it negotiates with pilots may mean growth at the low-cost carrier is deferred.

News of the contracts triggered widespread anger among the low-cost carrier's pilots, prompted legal action by the Australian Federation of Air Pilots and threatened to embroil the Qantas Group in another public battle over industrial relations.

Qantas is already facing industrial action from engineers and long-haul pilots, who are expected to apply to Fair Work Australia early this week for a ballot of members for approval to take industrial action.

Jetstar pilots were incensed by the moves to put new hires on a group contract outside the enterprise agreement that guaranteed employment for just 600 hours instead of the 800-plus Jetstar pilots generally work.

Jetstar management argues the flexibility is essential to continued growth and that it needs to match pilot workload to seasonal traffic and to move pilots around the multinational group. It says it has been trying to get an agreement on the issues for three years.

But pilots viewed the move as a betrayal of the agreement and more than 300 emailed management with their concerns.

In a memo obtained by The Australian, Jetstar Group chief executive Bruce Buchanan and Australia/New Zealand chief David Hall say the airline has decided to freeze Australian recruitment until September 1. It would also withdraw active offers of the new contract and move five first officers who had already accepted the enterprise agreement.

The memo says the company is holding talks with the AFAP and is hopeful it can quickly find a path that solves its business requirements and the desire of the pilot group to employ Australian pilots through a single enterprise agreement and it can lift the freeze earlier than September 1.

"The recruitment freeze may have (an) impact on capacity plans for this year, and there may be some deferral of growth while we work through this process," it says. "We believe our actions are a constructive step towards reaching agreement on flexibility . . .

"To continue to sustainably grow, we need to resolve these issues, otherwise we will be unable to continue the same level of growth."

I urge everyone to throw their support behind Jetstar's pilots on this issue. Pilots deserve to be able to feed their families as well, not just airline managers.

Mick

[Paul f.]

Originally Posted by Mick F

From The Australian



I urge everyone to throw their support behind Jetstar's pilots on this issue. Pilots deserve to be able to feed their families as well, not just airline managers.

Mick

So its only pilots that have to feed there families.

[Mick F]

Errrr, no, . The story is about pilots though.

Mick

[Andrew P]

for the uneducated what does JQ now pay a new young pilot (ball park only) and what is proposed?

[Matt_L]

Andrew P,

the proposed Jetstar Cadet figure after their large training repayments was a tad over 40K gross!


Further to this, Qantas pilots are now considering striking over a pay dispute, see news ltd article today,

QANTAS pilots stand to pocket almost $200,000 each on average if the airline caves into their demands, with the lion's share going on two free tickets a year to anywhere in the world.

Figures obtained by the Herald Sun reveal the pilots' claim for a pay rise, added job security and perks such as free flights, would total $317 million - an average of about $190,000 for each of the airline's 1700 flyboys.

Almost half of this - an estimated $145 million - would go towards pilots seeking two free premium economy seats to any overseas destination as a pay-off for Qantas being able to determine when they take their annual leave.

Other costs include a 2.5 per cent annual increase in wages over three years and a re-classification of what each level of pilots is paid, such as raising Boeing 767 pilots to the higher A330 rate (a more than 10 per cent increase) and the Boeing 747 to the A380 pay rate (a 5 per cent increase).

An average 747 pilot earns $350,000 a year and the top pilots earn up to $500,000.

Pilots are preparing to go on strike for the first time in more than two decades, a move that threatens to cripple the national carrier.

The pilots said yesterday that they were striking over job security.

"The future of Qantas is in jeopardy"

Yesterday the airline's CEO Alan Joyce said the future of the carrier was in doubt if action by "rogue union" leaders continued.

Fair Work Australia yesterday approved a ballot allowing long-haul pilots to vote on taking industrial action for the first time in 45 years.

"The continued claim that they are going to take industrial action ... is an attempt at further damaging the brand," Mr Joyce told the ABC's 7.30 program yesterday.

"Unfortunately, this is the way some of these rogue union leaders think."

The demands would result in job cuts, Mr Joyce said.

"They are demands the company cannot agree to and they are demands that will result in job losses in this company," he said.

Mr Joyce labelled both the engineers' and pilots' union leaders as "rogues" who the company was "going to have to stand up to".

Qantas puts the cost of the demands at more than $300,000 million but the pilots' association says the figure is more like $90 million.

"There are certain demands I cannot concede to because it will endanger the survival of the company," Mr Joyce said.

"Our international business is losing money, our international business, if these demands are met, will go back even further."

The company has clearly exploited the media here by effectively pinning the pilots down as being greedy. The case simply is an average 744 pilot is not on 350,000, and the only pilots earning 500,000 + are the very senior Qantas check and training captains on the 380 and maybe the Chief Pilot. These pilots are not greedy, quite the contrary- they see a worrying trend in that jetstar is moving to these group contracts with steam train pace and its only time before changes are washed over Qantas too.

This comment on the news ltd website exemplifies the problems the general public has with seeing why pilots need to be paid well and can not be seen as 'another generalized profession' and I quote :

"Greedy bastards try living on $50,000 pa. These planes practically fly themselves why pay half a million pa to someone to watch a computer. Of course this cost will be passed on to the poor smuck customer on $50,000 to subsidise these greedy clowns"

Now I ask you- which plane flew themselves when US1549 went down on the Hudson River in New york (2009). Oh thats right it wouldve been a total loss of life otherwise!