Skytraders - Meeting No. 3
Today, the AFAP met with Skytraders to progress negotiations for your new enterprise agreement in Negotiation Meeting No. 3. Attending for the AFAP were Andrew Molnar and Naomi Radke. Dan Colborne also attended. Attending for Skytraders were Derek Hayden, Duncan Mackay, John McRae, Dan Burnaby and Matthew Coughlan.
The meeting concentrated largely on the new rostering provisions to be included in your new enterprise agreement. Skytraders have been extremely proactive and committed in developing a process that will guide the new rostering provisions for each fleet.
This will be a 2-step process as follows:
- First, on or around 6 April 2024, a first trial roster covering the period of 8 April 2024 to 5 May 2024 (28 days) will be published. This first trial will predominantly be used to test the pilots receiving 8 RDOs and the extent of providing pairs of consecutive RDOs.
- Second, at a later stage, a second trial roster covering the period of 6 May 2024 to 2 June 2024 (28 days) will be published. This will be used to test what the “blocks” in between the RDOs will look like, and what inputs can be put into those blocks.
The AFAP sees this as a positive and proactive approach by Skytraders. It is the most appropriate way for Skytraders and the pilots to develop the data that will have the best chance of providing rosters that will give the pilots certainty and appropriate flexibility to Skytraders.
The drafting of rostering provisions to be included in your new agreement depends on the data gathered after the first and second trials. Consequently, the AFAP and Skytraders will wait to see what the results of the first trial are before further discussing this topic.
Skytraders will need your feedback, and during the trials this feedback (both positive and negative) should be provided. We urge all pilots to do so. You can either provide it directly to Skytraders or, if you prefer, you can provide it to the AFAP, and we will forward it to Skytraders. The important thing is that your thoughts on any aspect of the trials is made known to all parties.
The remainder of the meeting were spent discussing bonding and dispute resolution. The AFAP had previously provided draft clauses for discussion. These can be accessed [here] and [here]. Although the parties did not agree on all aspects of those clauses, each party is well aware of the concerns held by the other. Skytraders will revert to the AFAP with suggested amendments.
Given the first trial taking place, the parties will regroup to discuss rostering on 6 May 2024. However, other elements of the enterprise agreement will continue to progress by written communications between the AFAP and Skytraders.
As always, we will keep you updated on the progress of all the above matters.
If you have any questions in relation to the content of this briefing, or any other matter, please contact Andrew Molnar (andrew@afap.org.au) or Captain Naomi Radke (naomi@afap.org.au) or you can call us on (03) 9928 5737.
Your AFAP Industrial Team