USU/ASU delegates and officials met with Qantas management on Wednesday, 20 January 2021 to discuss the proposed restructure.
Management explained that they intend to make all FCO’s redundant. Some FCO duties will be centralised into an expanded Freight Planning Office (FPO) team, with a dedicated Domestic Night Freighter Ops team in Melbourne and a Domestic Passenger and International team in Sydney. There will be a new Freight Operations Coordinator (‘FOC’) in each terminal. The FOCS will supervise clerical staff and the TWU leading hands. They will also be the point of contact between terminals and the FPO office.
We are concerned that management haven’t thought through all the implications of the proposed restructure. A smaller group of centralised FPOs might work at the moment while flying remains at a low level, but we can’t see how this will work when flying gets busy again. We are especially concerned that the workloads for the new FOC roles will be unsustainably high.
We still have a lot to discuss with management. There is a further consultation meeting scheduled for Friday, 29 January which will discuss the numbers of staff affected in each port and the company’s proposed next steps.
If you aren’t an USU/ASU member, now is the time to join at www.usu.org.au/join.
Got a question?
Contact your interim organiser Clare Raffan for more information
