Qantas ground workers to strike once more

Hundreds of Qantas ground workers will strike again this week, as negotiations continue to stall.

Transport Workers Union (TWU) members with Qantas Ground Services (QGS) at Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Perth Airports, who serve Qantas Freight operations and some QantasLink operations in Sydney, will walk off the job for 24 hours on Wednesday (28 October).

“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,” TWU national secretary Michael Kaine said.

“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.”

The union is calling for more full-time jobs and hours, workers to be brought back under a single Qantas banner to “reduce deadly safety failings”, and “fair pay in line with industry standards after a decade of wage suppression”.

“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,” Kaine said.

“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.”

Australian Aviation understands Qantas did not see an impact on QantasLink flights at Sydney as a result of the previous industrial action in September, and is not expecting disruption from the upcoming action.

“We will have strong contingency plans in place and do not expect this action to cause any disruption to QantasLink customers,” a Qantas spokesman said.

“These employees do not service Qantas Domestic or Qantas International flights, or QantasLink outside of Sydney.

“We remain committed to reaching agreements with our employees that deliver substantial pay increases and reflect the priorities they have told us are important to them.”

The airline has put a new enterprise agreement directly to QGS employees, including back pay to September 2025; up to 26 per cent pay increases over the life of the agreement; and more full-time opportunities, as well as guaranteed part-time hours.

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