Christmas travel at stake: more airport strikes loom

Sydney Australia May 19, 2014 passenger aircraft Boeing 747-400 in Qantas colour scheme getting towed to the Qantas Maintenance hangar at Sydney Kingsford Smith airport with the city Skyline in the background, also visible some cargo Commercial Airplanes

By James Harrison

The end-of-year travel rush may be in jeopardy as 800 airport firefighters around Australia will vote on whether to take industrial action.

The United Firefighters Union (UFU) will vote today as it asks its employer Airservices Australia – the government air navigation and safety service – for more resources.

UFU aviation branch secretary Wes Garret said he has doubts if there was a fire that they would be able to deal with it as there “will not be enough firefighters to rescue passengers from a burning aircraft”.

Airservices Australia disputes this, saying that it reaches the standards of the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA).

With Christmas and the Summer holidays approaching, strikes could heavily impact the busiest time of the year for airports and airlines around Australia. This could be quite detrimental considering it is the first Summer holiday season with international borders open since the beginning of the pandemic

Garret said he was aware of the significant impact industrial action would have on the aviation industry at a time like this, but he felt the union had no other option left.

“(Airservices Australia’s) inaction has left us with two options – continue to put the travelling public at risk or bring these issues to the most important stakeholders, the public. The next two weeks will see a vote take place, but we fully expect a yes vote to take strike action,” Garret said.

UFU said 94 firefighters at the airport, or 12 per cent of the workforce, took a redundancy during the pandemic leaving them understaffed. However, Airservices Australia said it has hired the gaps to replace those staff and that their levels are well above the minimum required level.

An Airservices Australia spokeswoman said the government service had “made a generous pay increase offer of 11.5 per cent over three years.”

“Airservices will take all steps necessary to prevent disruptions to flights as a result of the industrial action. Our priority is to ensure the safe and efficient continuation of our services to keep Australian aviation moving.

“We are calling for the UFUA to abandon their strike ballot and return to negotiations.”

The Australian Financial Review reported that some industry sources believe that the strikes were unlikely to happen and thought it was sabre-rattling on behalf of the union to get its preferred pay.

This comes as domestic flight attendants at Qantas threaten to strike over working conditions and pay. The earliest they could begin industrial action the 18th November.

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airline airport airservices australia casa Civil Aviation Safety Authority summer holidays UFU United Firefighters Union Wes Garret