Qantas and ground staff fight over higher pay, extra hours

The Transport Workers Union says Qantas is forcing workers below the poverty line.

Qantas and 1540 ground staff are at loggerheads over pay and hours.

Qantas (QAN) is refusing to budge in negotiations for a new enterprise bargaining agreement covering more than 1500 of its ground staff who are demanding more full-time work and longer hours.

The negotiations for the new agreement — which covers about 1500 ground crew including baggage handlers, aircraft presentation, cabin cleaning, towing and push-back of aircraft staff — have been dragging on for nine months.

The Transport Workers Union alleges Qantas is forcing its workers below the poverty line by refusing to offer more than 20 hours of part-time work a week.

The union says Qantas has also refused to offer a guarantee that the airline will increase the number of full-time workers covered by the EBA.

But Qantas says staff covered by the agreement have always been a part-time workforce that “reflects the peaks and troughs of an airline schedule”.

The latest round of talks between the TWU, representing the Qantas Ground Services staff, and the airline was held last week without a resolution.

Of the 1540 employees with Qantas Ground Services, only 12 staff are employed full-time. Some 219 are employed as casuals and the remaining 1309 are part-time workers.

Under current conditions, Qantas part-time employees are guaranteed 20 hours of work a week. Any additional hours are paid at ordinary — and not overtime — rates for up to a total of 38 hours a week.

The TWU wants to increase part-time rostered hours to 30 a week; for employees to be rostered at a maximum of five days in any one week; and for extensions of shifts to be paid at overtime rates.

The union is also asking for a 4 per cent annual salary increase, a 1 per cent increase in superannuation and for Qantas to commit to a 35 per cent full-time employment target by the agreement’s expiry.

But Qantas has rejected all of the TWU’s demands and has put a number of counter claims — but only verbally — to the union, which says the counter claims would further degrade conditions for workers.

A spokeswoman for Qantas said the airline was continuing to negotiate in “good faith” with the TWU on the agreement and discussed at the recent talks the option of rolling over the current deal.