By Ramesh Subbaraman
A new union has been formed with the recent integration of budget airlines Scoot and Tigerair.
The Scoot-Tiger Staff Union (STSU) has 1560 members and was welcomed into the Labour Movement family in November 2016.
A protem committee of union leaders from the previous respective unions - the Scoot Staff Union and the Tigerair Staff Union of Singapore – is working closely with the management on integration, said NTUC Assistant Secretary-General (ASG) Cham Hui Fong.
She is also the Supervising Lead for the Aerospace and Aviation Cluster.
Priorities and Concerns
The Scoot-Tigerair integration was announced in May this year, and a common holding company named Budget Aviation Holdings was set up.
“This is just the beginning where we have two companies coming together and the journey forward is how do we integrate the team to be a unified team to work towards a common interest ,” said ASG Cham.
Budget Aviation Holdings CEO Lee Lik Hsin said the management engaged the unions from the start, even before the announcement went public.
“First and foremost on everybody’s mind was job security. On that count, we were able to give assurances to the union leaders ahead of the public announcement that there would be no job losses arising from the integration,” assured Mr Lee.
For the new union, a key milestone was forming the protem committee.
“With the new protem committee in place, discussions with management became broader in scope as it now entailed both airlines,” said STSU’s protem committee President Larry Tan Hwee Liang.
Union members were also concerned about which airline would have more attention from management as both airlines have different pressing issues.
“Other concerns such as staff seniority and pay differences of similar positions in both airlines were brought up as well. However, management has made the positive step of considering and discussing matters as a unified whole,” added Mr Tan.
Benefits
On benefits for the union members, ASG Cham explained that Scoot and Tigerair operate different fleets and have different work rosters.
“There are certain core benefits that we are trying to align coming together as one. But there are some benefits which are specific to the type of aircraft they are operating. For the time being, we will still allow them to run separately until such time we can do some cross deployment for cabin crew. Then probably we can do some alignment for the cabin crew when we acquire the one aircraft operating certificate,” said ASG Cham.
There is currently also no collective agreement (CA) between the management and the two previous unions.
Asked if a CA would be worked out with the new union, the Budget Aviation Holdings CEO explained: “The next stage of integration is the coming together as a single airline and that will also create more areas which we need to discuss with the union with respect to potential work patterns and rosters.
“We have a lot to do. These should be prioritised ahead of any future discussion around collective agreements,” said Mr Lee.
The single operating licence is expected by the second half of 2017.
Source: NTUC This Week
