Jetstar baggage handlers accept new pay deal

Jetstar has avoided a costly industrial fight after 350 of its baggage handlers accepted a new three-year wage deal.

Jetstar baggage handlers have accepted a new three-year wage deal.

Budget carrier Jetstar has avoided a costly industrial fight with 350 of its baggage handlers after the workers accepted a new three-year wage deal that will secure them a one-off cash bonus.

The feud between Jetstar and the Transport Workers Union-supported staff ended this week when 87 per cent of the ground handlers voted in favour of the new enterprise bargaining agreement. The acceptance of the deal puts an end to more than 18 months of tough negotiations.

Jetstar had bypassed the TWU in trying to push through a resolution to the long-running pay dispute in February but it failed when only 33 per cent of the 350 baggage handlers voted in favour of the deal.

The negotiations stalled amid allegations from the TWU that Jetstar management refused to guarantee any fulltime jobs; would not align job classifications along with others comparable in the industry; and offered minimal allowances that would not be payable to 96 per cent of their workforce.

The TWU had even won an application at the Fair Work Commission for a protected action ballot against parent company Qantas over the collapsed negotiations. But It failed to get the right to take industrial action as the ballot of workers was unsuccessful.

Jetstar said the EBA was voted in with no changes from the agreement that was offered at the start of the year. TWU spokesman Tony Sheldon, however said members had secured concessions including an increase in the minimum working hours for existing employees from 20 to 30 per week. New towing and training allowances were also won.

The new EBA is based on the same wages agreement that has been rolled out across Qantas’s workforce and will earn the workers a one-off 5 per cent bonus but lock them into an 18-month pay freeze.

More than half of Jetstar’s Australian employees have accepted the 18-month freeze that was backdated to September 2014 and concluded in March 2016.

Under the new deal, the Jetstar ground handlers will also be given three annual pay increases of 3 per cent and a range of improvement in conditions.