A Win?

Recently Airservices Australia recruited Global Recruits.  

These candidates almost universally were not Australian Citizens, with a few exceptions.  As part of the recruiting campaign undertaken to attempt to address the staffing crisis Airservices Australia utilised VISA 457s and sponsored the employment of non Australian citizens.

To help entice these non residents to the corporation Airservices paid people either at a premium to their current wage, assisting in relocation costs or a wage that was equal to the persons years of service.  Well done Airservices this is how to get staff!

But what of the Australian Citizens not recruited through this campaign, those already employed or about to enter 'Abinitio' courses with similar or better experience than some of those harvested in the Global Recruitment campaign.

Well in their infinate wisdom there was no recognition of previous experience to the Australian citizens, it was a different recruitment campaign after-all.  Ex RAAF controllers or ex Civil Controllers returning to the ATC workforce were paid at levels equivalent to abinitio entries or something similar but certainly not commensurate with their experience.

Until now,  The shafters now understand that those above mentioned folk have across the board had a pay adjustment and Airservices should be commended for attempting to fix the problem they created; even if they haven't fully recognised true pay levels.

So, Greg, well done. It would have made for horrible media we guess, but what ever the motivation, from all here at Certified Shafting, Well done.  

We hope Airservices can bring this type 'good faith' to the table and not lock us in to a battle that we all don't want to have, but we promise not to hold our breath.

Ding Ding

Well on points, the first round has gone to Civil Air. There were certainly no knock-out blows landed.

The employer postulated about all the reasons why a 'bloody good pay rise' would not be forthcoming unless 'trade offs' were utilised to increase the productivity.

We have seen speculation that a cap on sick leave is absolutely required and that PORs are an unreasonable restriction on our business.

But most interesting of all is that despite the first meeting being 3+ weeks late, the employer isn't in a position to make an offer yet, because they don't know what their staff want!

Well we say, why the hell don't you know that?

We have more managers than ever in an effort to increase communication (see justification for ALM structure) yet now we are all (both ways) less informed than ever.

The employer has advised that crucial information will be included in the WAYPOINT 2008 presentation; of which a copy will be provided after the event. 

WAYPOINT 2008 is where they announce to industry what the 5 year charging plan will be.  This is what they will then use to justify their inability to open up the purse strings and reach inside; because they will be returning all but a modest profit back to the industry.  And they will clearly factor in a modest ATC wages growth that will be 'locked in' after this announcement.  Therefore in their minds the only other way to get more money in your pocket will be to surrender your valuable conditions (which hamper their business) for that extra productivity.

MARK OUR WORDS, we won't be getting a 'bloody good pay rise' unless we fight for it.

We are particularly interested in the commentary of "FOCUS GROUPS" these have been referred to in the past as "FUCK US GROUPS" and rightly so.  These are utilised to justify that Civil Air doesn't represent the views of the membership.  They are about dividing and conquering.

Despite the explanations that Civil Air has 90%+ coverage of ATCs; they still think that Civil Air is the voice of the vocal minority and everyone else is either a sheep or too afraid to stand-up to the national executive (or individual members of it).  

Thus the logic, we have a right to talk to our staff and when we do we find they don't reflect the same views that Civil Air puts to us; thus we can't trust anything that Civil Air says because they don't represent their members.

From our reading of events; this meeting was about getting beyond WAYPOINT 2008 without making any commitments and then being able to say, "well this is what we have told industry and the ACCC has approved it sorry that's all we can do also this is in line with Federal Government Bargaining Framework".

Hell they have stated that they won't be able to make us an offer for 4 or 5 weeks, that's two months after the meetings were supposed to start.  Its about getting beyond a time when the figures are "locked in".

What can you do to help bring things to ahead?  Spread the word that the employer has shown clear signals of not being prepared to bargain in good faith again.  Spread the word about this blog.

Then ask yourself "Do I enjoy my days off?"

Meeting 1 - 12 May 2008

Today marked the centre bounce, the first whistle of the contest that is the Certified Agreement.

White line fever was apparent.

Both parties stood arm in arm, geeing each other up, confirming the game plan,  before taking to the field of battle.

One side with the unabridged support of the workforce the other the with the support and ideology of the previous governments managers still active and in control of the corporation.

On side asking for something fair and reasonable given the history, events, and profits achieved by the recent past.  The other denying the legitimacy of the request based on the global downturn, price of oil, future forecast, pricing agreements and government intentions about subduing wages growth to fight the genie that is out of the bottle.

So what actually happened?  If you know please feel free to post a comment.

Happy Mothers Day

To all the mums out there:

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY 2008

Monday marks the first day of the negotiations in earnest.

We anticipate one party presenting a thorough document with a non ambit claim supporting the wishes and desires of those behind the document.  

The other side will postulate, make outrageous claims and start us on the path to the expiration of the current agreement with a view to industrial action to be taken over the Christmas/New Year period, such is the expiry date of the agreement.

Only trouble is, gee whiz, is that the evil empire run by TFN will be stalling and blaming everyone else why a 'descent pay-rise' isn't possible.  Even though he truly believes we deserve it.

There will be little press until it gets to the business end of negotiations.  Well except for the occasional public bashing of those 'contriving' the events causing the closing of airspace or reductions in service.

The last PR man was escorted from the building after locking himself in his office after getting the news about him getting the 'bone'.  They have advertised nationally for his replacement, offering substantially more pay than the average ATC, well why not, you need to pay for quality in a competitive employment market.

Pity that last bit won't be used as an excuse when saying why ATCs won't get a fair, globally competitive deal.

Psychic us or what?

Yesterday we blogged about what will happen to those ALMs on AWAs now that the industrial framework has been amended by the current Federal Government.

Non AWA ALMs have now received an email from the "General Manager" ATC; clearly written by some underling.

They have two choices as we understand it:

1) Be part of a "Collective" to form an agreement, or 

2) Have Civil Air negotiate a "Collective Agreement" on their behalf.

This still begs the question as we typed yesterday, what becomes of those on AWA after their nominal expiry date?  Should they have any input into these negotiations?

AWAs - Line Managers

About 12 months ago, Airservices successfully divided the Air Traffic Controllers into two groups. Group one, Operational ATCs. Group two, Line Managers.

Group One:

ATCs will commence negotiating with their employer 3 weeks after the 'deadline' to do so contained in their certified agreement.  

This period of negotiating hopefully will be concluded prior to 21 December 2008, the end of the current agreement.  Hopefully there will be no need to divide the workforce further from the corporate culture than it already is.

Hopefully the negotiators for the workforce, made up of the members of Civil Air, will convince the employer that they do truly represent the workers and that a fair and reasonable offer is more than deserved.

Group Two:

Air Traffic Controllers, who previously were team leaders or operational supervisors, traffic managers, or in some cases Unit tower managers.  Most of these people accepted AWAs that were offered.  Some of these people have already moved on into retirement with all the higher benefits obtained by increasing their superannuation salary.

Some of the above mentioned supervisors received Voluntary Redundancy due to the employer not offering them suitable like type employment; others who didn't apply or accept ALM jobs also wanted Voluntary Redundancy.  The employer has claimed that they have been offered 'reasonable' other employment and there for they are not entitled to VR.

You can read the hearing transcript here: 

Day 1 www.airc.gov.au/documents/Transcripts/170308c20073792.htm

and here:

Day 2 www.airc.gov.au/documents/Transcripts/180308c20073792.htm

We still eagerly await the outcome of the hearing, held almost 2 months ago, such is life when dealing with the AIRC and any court/tribunal/arbitration processes.

Whatever the outcome, Airservices has removed around 10% of the workforce from the Certified Agreement to individual AWAs; this cannot be good in the longer term employment relationship.  There has been an ideological desire to separate managers from workers.  We still don't get why?  Because you can't supervise unless you aren't "one of the boys"?  Or you won't supervise properly unless your manager has the right to threaten your hard earned if you don't perform in your duties?

The employer looking to replace the ever departing ALM folk can no longer make an AWA with the new ALM, thanks to the new federal government, so what employment instrument can be made?

The employer has recently published "What it means for us..." article about "Workplace relations".

Essentially this 'advice' says that employees on or entitled to be on "AWAs" will be able to join a "Collective Agreement", after the nominal expiry date occurs on their current AWA.  In the fine print is that People in Management roles will transfer to a common law contract.

Remember that the employer had no desire to have a "Collective Agreement".  Management considers these positions to be Management; see above ideology.

There is scope within the current Workplace Relations laws to have a "Individual Employment Instrument" but these won't be use for employees of Airservices Australia as the government, the owner, doesn't believe in them.

So this then begs the question, will ALMs be considered Managers and moved to individual Common Law Contracts, or will they be pooled into a Collective Agreement.

If it's the latter then who is going to negotiate such a deal; is it to be part of or an addendum to the ATS Certified Agreement?  If so, are the members of Civil Air prepared to take industrial action to support those now on AWAs to get a deal that is worthwhile for the same individuals who chose to leave the fold and take the extra money on offer?

Management Style

Since the last "Certified (Shafting) Agreement" we have seen the management restructures, business department amendments and supervisory realignments. 

ATC was essentially immune from the majority of these restructures; well for the first few years of 'fiddling'.

Team Leaders became operational supervisors.  Operational Supervisors have since become Air Traffic Controller Line Managers or ALMs for short, well except for the majority of Regional Towers where the Unit Tower Managers jobs still 'exist'.

We all acknowledge that there are not enough ATCs manning operational positions, this gives the workforce a significant bargaining advantage if we chose to utilise that point.

At a time of short staffing, brought about by ongoing insufficient staff planning, SDE wastage/duplication of duties, we then implement the ALM structure to further deplete the operational ATC resource.

Approximately 90 ALMs are now performing supervisory and management roles; a significant increase in management when compared to the OS structure.  Of these 90 or so people over 65% came from the previous operational staffing pool, thus we have reduced our console coverage by about another 50 people.

Lets leave out the manner in which the ALMs were employed; that's a whole separate topic.

The are at least 7 people that have left or who are leaving the company that didn't apply for ALM jobs; previously they were Operational Supervisors; they are entitled to Voluntary Redundancy.  There are another group currently fighting for Voluntary Redundancy instead of being redeployed back to the boards or other non operational roles that they argue are not the same type of job (what not doing ATC, supervising ATC staff, not working shift work, not working weekends etc. fair enough difference in roles one would think).

So we could end up with 15 or so people leave the organisation, with pay-outs, because of the ideologies of the individuals involved in proceeding with the structure; even though they may have had advice that Voluntary Redundancy "was likely" for anyone wishing to pursue that option.

We have seen 'fraud' allegations and disciplinary action taken against individuals for leaving 30 minutes early with permission from their immediate supervisors (ie no substantive cost).  Yet when management waste potentially millions of dollars because of ideology, then it's called a business decision, not fraud.