FIRST BIG WINS IN BARGAINING!

It’s only our second meeting with Virgin and we’ve already knocked off 2 serious management claims that would have removed some classifications from the agreement and changed entitlements to penalty rates.

AMCO

Virgin had a claim to remove AMCO from coverage of the agreement. The USU/ASU had already provided feedback that those employees should remain covered by an agreement – if not the Guest Services agreement then potentially the new agreement we are bargaining that will cover your colleagues working the Operational Control Centre.

Today Virgin dropped the claim altogether.

Claim on your penalty rates

Management’s claim would have removed the payment of overtime for work in excess of 8 hours per shift to replace it with a minimum award penalty payment for shift extensions with <48 hours notice. The USU/ASU raised serious concerns around Virgin’s ability to calculate and explain any changes using the current payroll system. We also asked for Virgin to explain how their claim would meet the minimum conditions of the award.

Today, Virgin conceded that they have crunched some more numbers and think that it would be very difficult to make this cut to your conditions without breeching award minimum entitlements to overtime. For now the claim as it was presented to us last week is off the table.

Rostering

We know that Rostering is a key concern for everyone. We are also meeting with management again on Wednesday 7 October 2020 to continue discussions and further explain the USU/ASU’s claims. We’ve put together a short survey about rostering to get a better understanding of what you want for rostering.

Fill in the our Members Rostering Survey and tell us what you think – http://bit.ly/ASUrostering

It pays to be union!

For anyone who is not yet a USU member – now is the time to join. Sign up now to make sure you are supported and represented throughout this process: www.usu.org.au/join

For more information speak to your organiser: