Qantas and TWU to lock horns over ground staff pay at AGM

The TWU has urged Qantas investors to confront management about ground staff pay at today’s AGM.

Qantas ground crew pictured at Sydney international terminal.

The Transport Workers Union is urging Qantas shareholders to rail against the airline’s management at its annual general meeting today and demand better wages for its ground staff.

Qantas (QAN) and the TWU have been locked in negotiations for a new enterprise bargaining agreement covering more than 1,500 of its ground staff who are demanding more fulltime work and longer hours.

The negotiations for a new agreement — which, among others, covers baggage handlers, aircraft presentation, cabin cleaning, towing and push-back of aircraft staff — have been dragging on for more than ten months.

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

“I put it to management at Qantas: could you survive on the wages that some of the employees in your supply chain are on? Could you pay fulltime bills with these part-time wages?” said TWU national secretary Tony Sheldon ahead of Qantas’s annual general meeting in Sydney today.

“These restricted hours place many below the poverty line. By contrast, the Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has a take home pay of $13 million.

“It takes many employees in the Qantas supply chain a year to earn what Alan Joyce takes home in a day. This is about equity and fairness, it is about ensuring employees are able to support themselves and their families.”

Qantas, however, said that it “rejects the TWUs assertion that its employees live below the poverty line. The vast majority of our employees are employed on a full time basis. We do have a small part time workforce which, like many businesses, reflects the peaks and troughs of our daily operations. Those employees who are employed on a part time basis are paid above the national employment standards, which the TWU is well aware of.”

Of the 1,540 employees with Qantas Ground Services, only 12 staff are employed fulltime. Some 219 are employed as casuals and the remaining 1,309 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 fulltime employment target by the agreement’s expiry.

But Qantas has rejected all of the TWUs claims and put a number of counter claims — but only verbally — to the TWU.

Qantas’ conditions include an 18-month wage freeze at current rates that will end on September 1 2017; a 3 per cent pay increase in 2017 and another 3 per cent rise in 2019.

Qantas believes that the TWU’s claims would add cost into its business as well as reduce its flexibility and competitiveness.