Major disruptions at airports around the country have so far been voided after around 500 Qantas engineers began a 24-hour strike over an ongoing pay dispute
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Despite fears that a walk-off by hundreds of Qantas workers around the country could
00:07have spelled chaos for Sydney Airport on one of the busiest travel days of the year, any
00:11major problems have been avoided for now.
00:15As you can see behind me, the terminal here at Sydney Airport is remarkably calm.
00:19Qantas did say they had contingencies in place for any industrial action, which does make
00:23sense as they have experience dealing with this sort of strike, as only six weeks ago
00:28engineers walked off the job as well.
00:30The union did say they expected delays almost immediately from the walk-off as the engineers
00:36that were striking are responsible for towing and marshalling the aircrafts, but as long
00:40as we've been here, we've seen a handful of cancellation and delays, but so far it's uncertain
00:46if those are related purely to the industrial action or other issues outside of the aircraft's
00:51control.
00:52Now, what the union and Qantas are having a disagreement over is negotiations about
00:56a pay rise.
00:57The negotiations have been going on since April and completely broke down recently.
01:02The union is pushing for a 15% upfront pay rise with an extra 5% in the following years,
01:08while Qantas says their proposal is competitive at 3% increase over three years.
01:14Now, if negotiations aren't resolved in the next week, it is expected that there will
01:19be more strike action next Friday.