Qantas plan set to anger engineers
Scott Rochfort SMH
December 27, 2007
Qantas is set to further anger its maintenance staff by unveiling "contingency" plans to offset threatened industrial action by its 1700 aircraft engineers.
The airline is expected to detail as early as today plans that could include rescheduling flights and hiring non-union licensed aircraft maintenance engineers.
Qantas has declined to comment on speculation it was using the Irish labour hire firm Direct Personnel to offer six-month, $100,000 contracts to engineering staff made redundant in Sydney last year to act as strikebreakers.
This is more than double the salary its engineers receive.
Positions have also been advertised on the job website Resumedomain.com for engineers with heavy-jet experience.
"Successful applicants will be rewarded with an attractive salary package to ensure we attract the best," the ad says. There are reports a labour hire firm has resorted to visiting the homes of former engineers to entice them back to Qantas.
The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association has warned it will begin industrial action on January 9 unless Qantas agrees to its 5 per cent a year pay rise claim.
The action, which could include four-hour stoppages, will mean no one will be available to check Qantas flights for take-off or oversee maintenance checks on aircraft at critical times. Qantas has conceded it could be forced to reschedule most of its flights.
The attractive pay offer to former staff is likely to enrage the airline's engineering staff, 87 per cent of whom voted in favour of industrial action last week. As for the reported $100,000 packages, the union's federal president, Paul Cousins, said his members "are going to be absolutely furious".
The airline fuelled anger among staff last week when it announced plans to establish its first heavy maintenance base in Asia in partnership with Malaysia Airlines. Qantas said the new base would serve only as an "overflow" when its bases in Australia were booked out.
Mr Cousins questioned why an airline holding out on paying its staff an extra 5 per cent, or $4000 a year, was prepared to pay $100,000 to non-union engineers for six months. Qantas has a 3 per cent rise on the table.
"We've got no doubt that Qantas has supplied the list [of former staff] to this Direct Personnel firm so they can call the guys who left," Mr Cousins said. Qantas laid off 480 maintenance and engineering staff when it closed its Sydney Boeing 747 heavy maintenance base in May last year.
It is also suspected Qantas has asked Air New Zealand for lists of engineers made redundant.