Your USU representatives met with Qantas management on Thursday 7th December to continue consultation regarding the Customer Care & Baggage Services restructure.

Your USU organiser Josh Paterson took in a plethora of questions that were compiled in his recent visit to the Customer Care section. While not all were able to be answered, the union was able to gain clarification on the following issues, some of which still need to be followed up:

  • Deployment of the new technology was initially slated for 15 January but has experienced some slippage so this timeframe has been moved back slightly. Most likely will be some time in February.
  • Customer Care Team Leader Position x1
    • Final interview to be conducted this week
  • Customer Care Advocate positions x8
    • Higher view has been completed
    • All applicants have proceeded to second round interviews to be conducted this week
    • The USU has scheduled a teleconference with Qantas management on Thursday afternoon to get an update of where the recruitment process is up to and to discuss if subsequent application rounds need to be opened up. We will know more after this teleconference.
  • Job swaps
    • USU and Qantas to begin discussions on these opportunities in the next round of consultation meetings.
  • Hobart secondment opportunities
    • Will not be offered at this point in time, anyone interested in relocating will have to do so on a permanent basis as Qantas has quite generous relocation benefits associated with such moves.
    • It may be discussed in the future that by foregoing some of the relocation benefits Qantas would consider secondment to Hobart, this will be a topic for future consultation meetings.
  • Qantas has committed to allowing people to be released from the section where it is able to be facilitated in order for these people to pursue redeployment opportunities elsewhere in the company. There has been some worries from employees throughout this process that if they want to leave Qantas will not allow it, however we were assured this would not be the case without a legitimate business reason behind it.

Please encourage all colleagues to get on board with the union. We want to ensure the best possible opportunities for every single person but can only do this if we have the numbers to make it possible, furthermore we will only commit to outcomes for members. Contact union organiser Josh Paterson on 0418 761 320 or jpaterson@usu.org.au if you have any other questions or wish to join.