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USU/ASU delegates and organisers held our third consultation meeting with Qantas airports and Lounge management on Friday 21st August 2020 and we can now advise that offers to take redundancy will be made to a range of people who have expressed interest in volunteering to take a compulsory redundancy.
On Tuesday 25th August Qantas intends to make written binding offers to all staff whose first preference was redundancy but only in positions where the number of applicants was equal to or did not exceed the number of places the company wants to offer in the classification level or job concerned. Currently the EOIs are non-binding but to make them binding you will need to sign and accept the company’s offer. You will have 2 weeks to make your final decision – -check out the letter you receive for the final date for acceptance but as we write this bulletin we believe the final date will be either 8th or 9th September.
There are some jobs/classification levels where the number of staff expressing interest exceeds the number of redundancies that Qantas wants to offer.
A selection process for making the final offers to staff in this situation needs to be finalised. Initially Qantas wanted to apply a skills and training matrix to select the staff to make offers to, they are now suggesting a random selection process. Your USU/ASU reps have suggested that the selection process be done on seniority of service i.e. those with the longest service should be offered redundancy first until the numbers required are exhausted. We believe this is a transparent way to select staff and is beyond doubt.
Qantas management is considering their position and we hope to have the method of selection finalised ASAP so that the offers that fall into the oversubscribed category can be made as soon as possible too. We will let you know when the process is finalised. There are also some positions where Qantas does not intend to make offers at all as they say they still require these positions. We will potentially look at job swaps for these positions but this is in no way guaranteed.
It is important to remember that the EOIs were non-binding so some people may change their mind about taking redundancy, you can change your mind, nothing becomes binding until you get and offer from Qantas and you accept it by signing the offer.
There was one airport where the airport positions available were undersubscribed – this was in Melbourne. The lounge applications were oversubscribed and so we will be working with the company to sort through job swaps so that there are no compulsory redundancies.
In many ports we will be holding online meetings of members to explain what is happening – so make sure you either attend a meeting or talk to your local USU/ASU delegate or organiser to clarify where you stand if necessary.
When will the offers take effect?
Once offers are made and accepted, Qantas is saying that they will start effecting the redundancies on 15 September 2020 and then the 15 October 2020 depending on when you expressed interest in your initial form to leave ( the choices were August, September or October)
What about SLWOP and temporary changes to part time from full time?
A number of people expressed interest in these options. Qantas has indicated that the offers in relation to Special Leave without pay and temporary swaps from full time to part time will be discussed at our next meeting after the final offers for redundancy are made and accepted, we expect to have more information in mid-September.
What about Lounges?
In most airports, Qantas lounge management have said there will be very few redundancy offers made to Lounge staff. The number of people expressing interest for most redundancies in Lounges exceeds the number of places. A selection process as described above will apply to the allocation of these redundancies.
We have asked the company to look at their modelling again in relation to lounges and we are to meet to discuss this further on 17 September as the company says they need more time to look at this.
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