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Qantas engineers are preparing to strike again after a six-week impasse in negotiations.
Members of the Qantas Engineers’ Alliance (QEA) or “alliance unions”, comprising the AMWU, AWU and ETU, will down tools starting at 3:30am local time on Friday until 7:30am local time on Saturday across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide Airports.
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The alliance unions had agreed not to strike for six weeks after their previous action in September and October, in order to allow time for negotiations; however, the unions now claim Qantas has reneged on a promise to consider a new enterprise agreement proposal from the QEA.
The unions are seeking a 5 per cent pay rise per year, with 15 per cent in the first year to make up for more than three years of wage freezes; however, according to the unions, the Flying Kangaroo is “refusing to budge” on an offer of 3 per cent per year.
“For six weeks, Qantas has shown they cannot live up to their own values – they lied. Aircraft Maintenance Workers are feeling disrespected by the behaviour of Qantas and we all know how that feels,” AMWU national secretary Steve Murphy said.
“Workers have no other choice now, that during the holiday period, they will be taking industrial action to bring Qantas back to the bargaining table.
“Qantas is to blame if there’s any disruption to commuters over the holiday period. They have had six weeks to simply do what they said they would.”
Workers are planning another stoppage for next Friday, 20 December, if the stand-off is not resolved, and have also voted in favour of around 40 potential partial work bans including towing and docking, marshalling, and overtime.
A Qantas spokesperson said the airline expects to have the necessary resources in place to avoid significant disruptions.
“Our teams are working hard to ensure that this industrial action has minimal impact on customers’ holiday plans and we have put a number of contingencies in place and extra resourcing on the ground to ensure our customers get away as planned,” the spokesperson said.
“As always at this time of year our aircraft are full and airports are busy so we urge customers to give themselves more time to get through security and get to their aircraft.
“We’re offering our engineers a competitive package including pay rises, upskilling and career progression that will enable them to earn significantly more over the next few years.”
