We have now had responses to many of our claims and unfortunately there is nothing positive to report, save to say there was a positive indication about our payroll claim from the managers who are prepared to develop a protocol for underpayments and overpayments.

On our other claims, Qantas refuses to acknowledge there are issues with notice periods for rostering or with the lack of EBA duty travel provisions and with the way in which higher duties is managed.

As to staff travel, while we had a separate meeting on this issue on 18 June, we have not received anything more than the standard management response, that "staff travel is not an EBA issue". We reject this - we have seen other groups get staff travel improvements in EBA negotiations - we want the same. A better category, guaranteed holiday trip, less fees and better refunds are not unreasonable claims.

The Qantas management claims

At the end of our meeting on 1 July management verbally tabled a range of issues they want dealt with in the EBA. No document was provided, that is to come next time, but broadly this is what the company reps say is their agenda:

1. Part time clause proposals - cuts to part time conditions

- Increase the part time hours cap from 1410 hours to 1645 hours (i.e. overtime is only paid after this time)

- Provide a minimum of 20 hours per week (no maximum)

- Change daily hours from 7.6 hrs to 8 hrs

- Only pay overtime after 38 ordinary hours per week

- Remove part time barrier at level 7

- Determine part time access to overtime

2. Reduction of the Mascot only shift allowance of 17.5% for work between 4-6am to 15% (NB Qantas left this off their bulletin)

3. Transport & Disability Allowance

- Provide another way for paying this - not sure what is meant, nothing tabled

4. 20th day / RDO cash out

- Continue existing one off provision

- Provide automatic cashout for RDOs / 20th days accumulated over 10 days

5. Change to Payroll weeks

- Change pay from 1 week arrears and one week in advance to 2 weeks in arrears

- Provide for this alignment (not clear what is proposed)

6. Temporary Employees

- Extend the available time for engagement from 12 months to 24 months in all circumstances

7. New Clauses

- Provide the standard Fair Work Australia Dispute Settlement and Flexibility clauses in EBA (not sure why require this!)

8. Cashout Annual Leave

- The Qantas EBA Bulletin mentions this claim - this was not raised at our meeting, so we don't know about this!

Qantas' agenda is substantial and means they want some significant changes to major areas - we have reserved our response to this until we get more detail and have discussions with members in mid to late July.

What’s next?

The ASU still need to detail a range of claims including our classification changes, our response to the Airports of the Future, our wage claim of 5% and our consultation and dispute settling clauses.

We are also discussing the modern Award and ambiguities at a separate meeting on 9 July.

We have had one side meeting on the QFIT wage / classification claim and expect to discuss this more on 13 July.

A more detailed separate bulletin is available on the Qantas Holidays discussions.

Next meetings

Meetings are scheduled for:

9 July - Ambiguities, modern Award

13 July - QF EBA (includes separate meeting on QFIT 1-10s)

28 July - QF EBA

4 August - QF EBA