Qantas sacks women

The Transport Workers Union and the (ACTU) have accused Qantas of sex discrimination after it sacked 14 female workers who cleaned planes at Sydney Airport.

The Transport Workers Union (TWU) State Secretary, Wayne Forno, has accused Qantas of targeting “vulnerable” workers, some from non-English speaking backgrounds. The union has called for Qantas to reinstate the workers, and claims the women were excluded from applying and re-training for new full-time positions male colleagues were offered.

The male workers who replaced the women will apparently double as baggage handlers. The dismissal comes in the wake of recent figures demonstrating Australian women are paid 17 per cent less than men for the same or similar work.

“We will keep fighting for solidarity for these women,” Forno said last week. “This will set an example for all employers that this kind of 1950s outdated behaviour and discrimination will not be tolerated.”

One of the fired workers, Souad Palmer, 56, said the sackings were “unfair” and that there was more than enough work. “My second last day I did a 12-hour shift,” Palmer says.  “We were doing overtime and at times the airline hostesses even had to help us clean the planes.” At 56, Palmer is having difficulty finding work.

Lucy Del Prado also spoke of the difficulties she has faced since Qantas fired her.

“I have bills to pay and three kids to support, and no work,” Del Prado says.

“I worked hard. I had no sick days. I thought I had a long term future at Qantas, a career and a stable job where I could support my family.”

Some of the women – including Palmer and Del Prado – attended the ACTU’s Equal Pay Alliance Breakfast Forum last Thursday in Canberra.

Palmer claimed Qantas “assumed that we couldn’t be utilised in other areas simply because we were female.”

Del Prado agrees. “We were experienced. We could do the job. If a man can do it, we can do it.”

– By Alexandra Roach