Qantas cabin crews seek to strike, throwing travellers’ summer holiday plans into disarray

Qantas’s 1500 domestic cabin crew are threatening to strike over a new work deal heading into the busy summer holiday season.

Qantas customers could face another hit to their holiday plans after some 1500 of the airline’s cabin crew took their first step toward industrial action.

The Flight Attendants Association of Australia said two groups of domestic cabin crew had filed applications in the Fair Work Commission to undertake work bans and strikes.

FAAA national secretary Teri O’Toole said cabin crew were being threatened with outsourcing unless they signed a new enterprise agreement that “dramatically cut conditions”.

“We’re talking about deals that would extend duty lengths at the same time as reducing rest provisions, all the while not even guaranteeing work on the new (A321neo) aircraft,” Ms O’Toole said.

“Cabin crew have raised concerns the proposal would significantly impair their fatigue management.”

The shift extensions would result in cabin crew working for 12 hours instead of 9.45 hours, and up to 14 hours in the event of a disruption.

Rest periods between shifts would be reduced to 10 hours when flights were disrupted and there was no other crew available.

If the application for a protected industrial action ballot were granted, cabin crew would be asked to vote on work bans, such as reading safety briefs during paid shifts rather than in their own time which would cause delays to flight schedules.

The Flight Attendants Association of Australia national secretary Teri O’Toole. Picture: Adam Yip

Stop-work actions such as strikes were also proposed, and the earliest date for any action would be November 18.

Ms O’Toole said crew were at the end of their tether and were standing up to “disgraceful outsourcing threats from Qantas management”.

“Cabin crew may serve tea and coffee on a good day, but when it’s not a good day at the office they are the firefighters, the paramedics and the police on that aircraft, and they need to be able to act fast and be free of fatigue,” Ms O’Toole said.

“Workers are already exhausted trying to keep up with demand on a skeleton workforce following cuts to crew numbers per flight (from five to four) and an overenthusiastic redundancy scheme to cull workers and cut costs.”

She said it would not be a good outcome for anyone, including passengers, if crew were forced to work longer and harder than they already were.

“No additional break between shifts would cause more to go off sick with fatigue, causing further disruption to an already chaotic Qantas flight schedule,” Ms O’Toole said.

“We implore Qantas to drop its attack on its essential cabin crew workforce and return to the bargaining table in good faith.”

A Qantas spokesman said the FAAA’s grounds for applying to the FWC for a protected action ballot were misleading, as negotiations were still under way.

“Our focus is on reaching agreement with our people. It’s not our plan to outsource this work,” he said.

The effect of industrial action on holiday travellers could disrupt flights. Picture: Brendan Radke

“We have rigorous fatigue-management processes in place for crew and the shift length changes we’re asking for are the same that apply to crew working at other domestic airlines in Australia.”

He said the FAAA had signed off on those conditions for other airlines and it was “bizarre they were now claiming they’re unsafe”.

“The deal we’re proposing offers pay increases, the opportunity to secure thousands of dollars in incentives and an expansion of overtime payments,” the spokesman said.

“We’re going to keep negotiating in good faith on these agreements because we want our existing crew to operate the new aircraft when they arrive.”

Cabin crew are the third group of workers to threaten industrial action, after licensed engineers and ground handling staff.

The licensed engineers voted in favour of protected industrial action in August but called a “pause” on any disruptive activities when negotiations resumed.

Ground handling workers employed by Dnata and Menzies backed down when their demands for better pay and conditions were met.

Originally published as Qantas cabin crews seek to strike, throwing travellers’ summer holiday plans into disarray