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Australian airline workers threaten strike over pay
Qantas workers are considering strike action in response to a low pay offer in a year of record profits for the Australian national airline.
Company shareholders voted at their annual general meeting on 22 October to increase the money paid to corporate directors by 66 per cent. Yet they agreed to pay only half of the six per cent rise claimed by the Australian Services Union (ASU), whose 12,000 members work in areas like check-in, reservations, catering and IT. The union’s demand for improved commitments on job security was also rejected.
Qantas employees agreed to a wage freeze in 2001 to help the company cope with a global downturn in the industry’s fortunes, and have shouldered ongoing rounds of redundancies over the last 10 years.
”In hard times, companies expect workers to make sacrifices,” said Linda White, assistant national secretary of the ASU. “When those companies return to profitability, workers deserve their fair share.”
Pre-empting possible industrial action by the unions, Qantas has been openly training strikebreakers to avert any disruption to flights over the Christmas peak period. Its tough approach is supported by an increasingly anti-union climate in Australia.
Prime minister John Howard has been re-elected and is promising to push through reforms to industrial relations, aimed at reducing union power and curtailing the right to strike.
The online trade union news service Labourstart has set up an email campaign in support of Qantas workers. To send a message to Qantas chief executive Geoff Dixon click on the LabourStart page
here.
