Qantas Australian airline employees strike for better wages

Thursday, October 24, 2024 

This Wednesday hundreds of unionized workers of an Australian airline, Qantas, went on strike. The Melbourne and Brisbane airports were affected as many engineers did not work for 24 hours. The workers were campaigning for five percent yearly wages increase and a one-off, fifteen percent increase, which Qantas management called "unsustainable". According to Steve Murphy, the national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, the workers' wages have been frozen for three-and-a-half years.

A file photo of a Qantas A380 airplane taken in 2018.
Image: Vismay Bhadra.

In a video report by The Age, workers can be heard chanting "Who keeps the planes flying? We do!".

Qantas said they had taken steps to ensure that customers would face no delays of flights as a result of the strike.

The bargaining started in April this year and the latest enterprise agreement expired in July.

The Qantas Engineers Alliance includes the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, Australian Workers' Union and Electrical Trades Union of Australia.

Sources

• Dexter Tilo. "Qantas criticises union pay requests amid engineers' strike: reports" — HRD, October 24, 2024
• Alexandra Feiam. "Chaos as Qantas staff walk off the job at major Australian airports" — News.com.au, October 23, 2024
• "Hundreds of Qantas workers strike" — The Age, October 23, 2024 (Video)