Qantas winds back its Christmas peak ‘volunteering’

Despite Qantas reporting a “very good” response to its ‘‘volunteering initiative’’, it has made changes to the program.

Qantas has wound back its “volunteering initiative” at Sydney International Airport after an angry response from unions.

The “Christmas peak volunteer initiative 2018” was sent out to staff at the airline’s Mascot headquarters last week, inviting employees to “lend a hand to the frontline” in December and January.

Roles available for volunteers included helping out in the self-service check-in area, auto bag-drop, arrivals hall, bussing area and business lounge.

The Australian Services Union led the protest against the plan, labelling it “corporate greed” and “wage theft”.

Despite Qantas reporting a “very good” response to the initiative, a spokesman confirmed yesterday that changes had been made, cutting it down to a two-week period.

“We recognise some of the planned activity went further than previous years so we have made some changes to the program,” the spokesman said.

The changes included restricting the volunteering to executives who would spend no more than two hours a day at Terminal 1, handing out bottles of water and chocolates and helping people with directions.

An extra 24 customer service agents would be rostered on each day, and overtime would be paid where applicable.

The ASU welcomed the backdown, after having expressed outrage that a company as large and profitable as Qantas would resort to unpaid labour to cover its bases at the busiest time of the year.

“Union members fought really hard against that disgraceful move, and we were very successful in getting that terrible idea reversed,” said the union’s NSW secretary, Natalie Lang.

She said the widespread outrage in response to the plan being made public was a “wonderful outcome”.

Qantas made a record underlying before-tax profit of $1.6 billion in the 2018 financial year. The company paid its chief executive, Alan Joyce, $10.9 million.