QF Strike threat may ground planes.

[Ngineer]

Qantas strike threat may ground planes


November 6, 2009



QANTAS passengers face disruptions in coming weeks after professional engineers voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action for the first time in the airline's history.
The stand-off with the engineers over conditions and pay is the first real test of the relationship between Qantas' new management and its heavily unionised workforce.
Although professional engineers number only about 130 at Qantas, they are a crucial part of the engineering workforce because they must sign off on any significant maintenance work before aircraft are allowed to fly. Strike action could force Qantas to ground aircraft.
Members of the engineers' union, the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, will meet today at 1pm in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne to decide what action to take. Yesterday, 98 per cent of the professional engineers voted to take industrial action, after talks with the company over the past seven months failed to resolve their differences.
Union director Catherine Bolger said the dispute centred on the out-of-hours work required to maintain the airline's fleet and demand for pay parity with other workers. She cited occasions where, in a 24-hour period, some senior engineers had to approve maintenance tasks with less than five hours' sleep between jobs.
The engineers' enterprise bargaining agreement expired in June and in any new deal they want to bring their salary in line with other Qantas staff.
''We are calling on [Qantas' chief executive] Alan Joyce to resolve this dispute,'' Ms Bolger said. ''He has indicated that he wants to have a more constructive relationship with the workforce than was the case under his predecessor.''
Ms Bolger said the industrial action could result in the grounding of Qantas aircraft if the dispute escalated ''but that is not where we want to go''.
A Qantas spokeswoman said the airline was ''disappointed'' the union was taking action and insisted it had not walked away from the negotiating table.
‘‘If industrial action is taken by the union Qantas has contingency plans in place, which will mean there will be no disruptions to travel or aircraft,’’ she said. ‘‘ We won’t be grounding aircraft.’’
‘‘We remain disappointed that action will be taken and that 30 per cent pay increases over three years is completely unreasonable,’’ she said.

I thought 30% over 3 years was a bit rich, but then after considering what GD walked away with for less than 12 months work.... maybe the are onto something.