Passengers being put at risk, say Qantas engineers
A Report by Andrew Carswell and Rhys Haynes in The Daily Telegraph says that Qantas is taking its impeccable safety record for granted and putting passengers at risk in a bid to save cash, airline engineers claim.
Two senior Qantas engineers who spoke exclusively to The Daily Telegraph yesterday said the airline was risking tragedy by not adequately recruiting for or funding its maintenance division.
The airline’s 1700 licensed engineers are expected to launch industrial action before the end of the week after failing to come to an agreement with management last night.
If the stalemate continues today it is expected engineers will ban all overtime from Friday in their first attempt to extract a 5 per cent pay increase over three years. Qantas is offering a 3 per cent rise over three years.
While both the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association and Qantas believe any industrial action will not disrupt flights, the union has hinted at four-hour stoppages if its terms are not met.
Above and beyond the dispute over pay, engineers believe Qantas executives need to pour funds into the engineering department and make an ironclad promise not to send its services offshore.
A Qantas engineer told The Daily Telegraph that cost cutting had now become a safety issue.
“We are just jack of a management who are really keen on cutting our engineering budget to a point that we believe is a safety issue,” the engineer said.
“Qantas has the best safety record in the world and we intend to protect that, but the board seems to be only interested in the shareholders.”
The industrial action is likely to reach a climax thanks to a legal recourse whereby Qantas can dock employees four hours of pay if they attend a stop-work meeting or refuse to work overtime.
Another whistleblower said engineers were sick of watching Qantas executives boost their own pay packets while refusing to budge on staff salaries.
“Qantas is going to announce a profit of $1.5 billion this year, so there’s plenty of money around,” he said.
Qantas has long claimed any industrial action and contingency plan centered around maintenance would not put safety at risk.
“Safety will not be compromised in any way,” Qantas maintenance chief David Cox said.
A Report by The Mole from The Daily Telegraph
John Alwyn-Jones
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