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After over a year of disputes, Qantas maintenance workers plan to ramp up their industrial action seeking a resolution.
According to the Qantas Engineers’ Alliance, intertwined with Electrical Trades Union (ETU), hundreds of Qantas engineers have “overwhelmingly” voted to escalate their industrial action after the airline’s management withdrew its latest pay offer.
In what the union labelled as a “shameful” dispute, that has continued since April 2024, over 80 per cent agreed to up the ante on the industrial action front.
“It is shameful that Qantas workers still have to fight to have their skills recognised and valued. Qantas should do the right thing and pay these workers what they deserve,” said the ETU in a statement.
So far, the industrial action has included rolling work bans, with 20 key duties critical to the airline’s operations, including towing of aircraft, de-icing operations, and forklift use, being halted in an attempt to end the ongoing dispute.
That was the third round of protected industrial action the engineers had undertaken since pay negotiations went silent in 2024.
“The latest round of negotiations saw Qantas offer a 17 per cent increase over four years, an offer union members rejected as insufficient following a decade that saw just 12 per cent total wage growth and included three years of wage freezes,” said the ETU.
Speaking on the dispute, ETU national secretary Michael Wright said: “It’s time for Qantas to come to the table and do the right thing. These workers are taking action because Qantas will not agree to a fair pay deal.
“It’s outrageous that highly skilled workers have had to take on this fight for as long as they have. It was these engineers [who] kept Qantas running during COVID, and Qantas only has the safety record it has because of the dedication from this workforce. Members will keep up the fight until they win what they deserve.”
As previously reported by HR Leader, Qantas has been embroiled in numerous pay disputes with differing workers over the course of 2025, with all three major Qantas pilots’ unions having already filed for protected action at freight subsidiary Express Freighters Australia.
“Pilots in the Qantas Group across three unions are standing up and saying it’s time Qantas comes forward with an industry-standard deal that provides improvements to work/life balance and decent pay increases,” said TWU national secretary Michael Kaine.
“Across the Qantas supply chain, we are still seeing workers struggling with poor rostering, declining conditions, and contracts going to the cheapest bidder. Time and again, we’ve heard Qantas say it’s changed, but we are yet to see evidence of that.
“We need to stop seeing workers treated as a cost to be lowered rather than an investment.”
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Industrial relations is the management and evaluation of the interactions between employers, workers, and representative organisations like unions.
Kace O'Neill
Kace O'Neill is a Graduate Journalist for HR Leader. Kace studied Media Communications and Maori studies at the University of Otago, he has a passion for sports and storytelling.
