Hundreds of Qantas workers across the country will take further 24-hour strike action next Wednesday at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth Airports over the company's continued tactics to drive down pay and conditions.
The workers, who move freight including for Australia Post and operate the passenger network QantasLink, were split by Alan Joyce across three separate companies QAL, QGS and AAE, and are calling for:
· Fair pay in line with industry standards after a decade of wage suppression
· More full-time jobs and hours
· Workers to be brought back under one Qantas banner to reduce deadly safety failings
Qantas' scattering of its workforce among multiple subsidiaries has splintered the aviation workforce, draining experience from airports and leading to dangerously unsafe standards for both workers and the travelling public. A Qantas Freight worker was tragically killed on Father's Day last year, with a SafeWork investigation ongoing.
TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said:
"Alan Joyce gutted the Flying Kangaroo, and workers and the travelling public are still paying the price. They are forced once again to strike next week because the alternative is an industry of dangerously unsafe standards for them and passengers.
"Under Joyce, Qantas mastered the art of creating new companies just to pay people less and take away full-time roles-not to mention the largest illegal sackings in our nation's history.
"Qantas' disdain for its workforce has turned careers that people were proud of into scraps of increasingly unsafe work, with a revolving-door workforce and experience in freefall. Workers have been pitted against each other across different artificial companies so the airline can funnel more profits to executive bonuses.
"It is the people of this airline that make it the Spirit of Australia, and they are standing up today to rebuild the careers that Qantas used to foster."
