Qantas managers risking lives, says union
June 23, 2008 - 6:55PM
Qantas managers put passengers at risk when they did the work of striking engineers in Melbourne today, unions claim.
About 60 engineers, half of the 120 workers rostered to work at Melbourne's domestic terminal, walked off the job at 2am (AEST) today.
The four-hour stopwork action was repeated in Sydney and Cairns in protest against Qantas' refusal to increase its three per cent pay offer to its 1,500-strong engineer workforce.
The Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) is demanding a five per cent increase.
ALAEA president Paul Cousins said 12 to 15 Qantas managers from around Australia, all former engineers, worked on Melbourne aircraft overnight.
Qantas confirmed managers were deployed in several locations today while engineers were on strike.
Mr Cousins said passengers could have been endangered by the move because the managers were not as experienced as employed engineers.
"Obviously, we have big concerns in regard to that because we feel that there is an amount of competency required," he said.
Mr Cousins said engineers renew their licences every two years, and must have worked in maintenance for at least six months of a preceding 24-month period.
"We certainly don't believe that these managers that have taken over these positions could actually show those credentials," he said.
"We are concerned that these standards that have set Qantas as a benchmark in aviation safety around the world are being lessened by the use of these individuals."
Mr Cousins claimed the managers, whom he described as "scab labour", missed an important check overnight which resulted in a Sydney-bound aircraft being delayed.
"With the scab labour that they had on, which was Qantas managers masquerading as licensed engineers, basically they missed an important minimum equipment list (MEL) item," he said.
Mr Cousins said the flight with about 200 passengers was delayed for several hours.
But a Qantas spokeswoman today said there were no significant delays.
"A limited number of our Melbourne services have experienced delays of under half an hour this morning," the spokeswoman said.
Qantas executive general manager of engineering David Cox said the incident referred to by the union occurred because of paperwork and not a safety issue.
"This is another example of the union making exaggerated safety claims when it's on a campaign for more money," he said through a spokesman.
"For the union to pretend that such minor issues don't occur when its members are on duty is laughable."
Qantas executive general manager of people Kevin Brown confirmed Qantas had used managers while engineers were on strike.
Asked whether Qantas would use an alternative workforce, including offshore-trained workers, Mr Brown said: "We've said that we would consider doing that".
"We haven't deployed any of those people today and at this stage we don't expect to tomorrow."
Six Qantas flights from Sydney and Melbourne were cancelled today and another 18 have been cancelled tomorrow.
The airline said all of tomorrow's passengers had been rebooked on flights within one-and-a-half hours of their original flight times, but some international flights would experience extended delays.
Several international flights out of Sydney and Melbourne today were delayed by up to six hours, Mr Brown said.
The union withdrew a strike planned for Wednesday and Thursday after a challenge against the legality of the action last Friday in the Industrial Relations Commission.
AAP