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Hundreds of Qantas engineers have gone on strike for just over 24 hours after wage negotiations between the airline and unions stalled.
500 engineers across Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth walked off the job at 3:30am local time, and won’t return until 7:30am local time on Saturday.
Long running negotiations between Qantas and the Qantas Engineers’ Alliance have broken down after the Alliance’s request for a 25 per cent pay rise.
The Alliance, made up of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Australian Workers Union (AWU) and the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) are seeking 5 per cent pay rise increase per year, with an up-front pay rise of 15 per cent in the first year.
Unions blame Qantas for any disruptions
AMWU national secretary Steve Murphy said that, although workers had agreed not to partake in industrial action for the last six weeks, they were left with few options to move forward.
“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,” he said.
“Qantas is to blame if there’s any disruption to commuters over the holiday period.”
Workers have also voted for another stoppage next Friday, 20 December.
Workers previously went on strike in September, with Murphy saying then that workers were undervalued and underpaid.
“If you’ve had a bad Qantas experience, well that’s nothing compared to how Qantas makes their workers feel every day.”
Despite the strike, airports have so far reported minimal disruption to usual travel.
“As at 8:30am, more than 97 per cent of domestic Qantas flights have departed on time,” a Qantas spokesperson said.
“The airline has put a number of contingencies in place and passengers should continue to head to the airport as they normally would.”
With the holiday period in action, 13.5 million people are expected to move through the major airports over the next six weeks.
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