MORE STRIKES FROM TWO UNIONS CAUSE PASSENGER DELAYS

SYDNEY, 6 October 2011: Tomorrow’s strikes by unions representing licensed aircraft maintenance engineers, baggage handlers and other transport employees will affect over 5,700 Qantas passengers bringing the number of passengers affected by the industrial action to over 35,000.

On the last day of school holidays in most states, Qantas has been forced to cancel 17 flights and delay another 29 flights by up to an hour due to the strikes by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) and the Australian Licenced Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA).

The TWU will go on strike for two hours between 4pm-6pm around Australia (local time in each location). The ALAEA will continue its rolling one-hour stoppages, which will mean further disruptions at Melbourne Airport tomorrow afternoon from 3pm.

Qantas is contacting customers who were booked on flights that have been cancelled and those that have been significantly delayed. Updated flight details are available at www.qantas.com

Qantas Group Executive Olivia Wirth said the airline would again deploy Australian-based Qantas management staff to undertake operational roles such as baggage handling and catering and would put on larger aircraft on some routes.

“These unions are continuing to take industrial action which is intentionally causing disruptions to our passengers and hurting the Qantas brand,” Ms Wirth said.

“Taking strike action does nothing to progress negotiations.

“This is a coordinated campaign by three unions, with the pilots’ union this week also starting new unauthorised in-flight announcements over the public address system on international and some domestic flights.”

Ms Wirth said while the strikes from the ALAEA were impacting passengers on an almost daily basis it is their industrial action which bans overtime and has licensed engineers working slowly which is likely to have the greatest impact.

“Back in 2008 the engineers’ union went on strike and had overtime bans in place which caused significant delays and disruptions to tens of thousands of passengers, costing Qantas more than $130 million.

“We have already seen the union’s go-slow action cause significant delays in getting aircraft maintained and back into service. As always, Qantas will continue to ensure safety before schedule and no aircraft will be released into service that does not have all required maintenance completed.

“We want to reach a fair and reasonable negotiated outcome with our workers but we cannot accept demands from the union for a guarantee that no changes be made to outdated maintenance work practices and no productivity improvements be introduced.
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Ms Wirth said despite negotiations being underway on a new enterprise bargaining agreement for months, Qantas had been unable to reach an agreement with the Transport Workers Union.

“We value our staff, we are a generous employer and we are willing to negotiate reasonable pay increases.

“The TWU has negotiated a new deal with Virgin which is 12 per cent lower than Qantas rates and includes a wage freeze and a lower pay scale for new starters. This gives Virgin a competitive advantage over Qantas.”

The ALAEA has also notified Qantas that members in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane will walk off the job for four hours on Monday 10 October.

?“The TWU’s claim for 15 per cent pay increase over the next three years is just not sustainable in the current economic environment – and given Qantas workers are already the best-paid in the industry.

??“The TWU is also trying to place restrictions on Qantas which would remove our flexibility to scale up or scale down our workforce in line with busy and quiet periods.