Airline strike on July 21 could cause disruption

Airline passengers travelling through Sydney during a mid-week strike by fuelling staff in the Transport Workers Union won’t experience significant delays, the target of the industrial action has said, despite the union threatening otherwise.

The Airline Fuel Services workers will protest next Wednesday, July 21 against what they call an attempt to introduce a two-tiered pay system, but a spokesperson for the group says this isn’t accurate and delays aren’t expected either.

“They’ve given us notice of a strike, and while there might be potential disruption we have contingency plans in place, alternative refuelling arrangements and we don’t expect there to be an impact on the travelling public,” spokesperson Felicity Wilson told SmartCompany.

The TWU, which was contacted for comment but did not reply, has said that AFS is “obsessed” with casualising its workforce.

Secretary Tony Sheldon told The Australian the AFS, which is jointly owned by Qantas, Caltex, BP and Mobil, has offered 21 full-time employees a new agreement that would offer an annual pay rise of 5% over four years.

However, Sheldon says casual workers will receive lower wages, and as a result, the union wants a better agreement that will provide all workers the same rate of pay.

“The labour hire section of the workforce would have their wages reduced between $14,000 and $16,000 a year and they would pay the direct hire employees, who do the exact same work under the exact supervision in the same clothes, a 5% wage increase each year for the next four years,” union secretary Tony Sheldon told The Australian.

“The bulk of the work they do is both international and domestic flights for Qantas/Jetstar and if the company locks them out for seven days, which they’ve informed they will do, then the company will be causing gross disruptions within air traffic around Australia because of the knock on effect of delays of refuelling,” he said.

But Wilson says this isn’t entirely accurate, and she denies accusations the company will lockout workers for a week if a strike begins.

“The enterprise agreement we have proposed is 5% for four years, for 21 existing employees. We want to include a grandfather clause that ensures existing paying conditions are granted to existing employees, while introducing a future rate for new employees.”

“The enterprise agreements don’t cover casual or contract staff, it only covers the employer and the employees directly, and the new system of pay will apply for any future full-time employees.”

While the TWU has proposed a new agreement, which would provide a 3.5% pay rise over three years for all types of staff, Wilson says union negotiators haven’t agreed to a clause that would allow future full-time employees to be paid on a separate agreement.

The big issue here, she says, is that AFS staff are already paid 15% above similar workers across the country, and this structure “isn’t commercially viable”.

“When you have the TWU lobbying for equal pay for equal work, that’s concerning because the TWU is a party to the other enterprise agreements in the airports which have different rates.”

“We want to negotiate, we are continually eager to negotiate, so these other accusations from the ACTU that we aren’t talking to our employees aren’t true at all.”

Workplace relations minister Simon Crean said through a spokesperson last night the parties involved must resolve the dispute “in the framework provided by the Fair Work Act”.