Reprieve for Qantas workers

MELBOURNE — On April 14, the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC) ordered Qantas to try to stop 480 workers employed at the airline's Sydney maintenance centre from losing their jobs as a result of the company's push to move its Boeing 747 maintenance work to Melbourne and Brisbane.

Qantas was ordered to suspend its redundancy program until it has given unions details of what it has done to minimise job losses and what has been done to mitigate the effect on workers who are to lose their livelihoods.

Qantas has claimed that its workers in Sydney were failing to meet international quality benchmarks, but the AIRC ordered it to provide details of this to the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Australian Workers Union. The AMWU's legal counsel said the AIRC decision was possible only because the case was lodged before the new Work Choices laws came into effect on March 27.

Ben Courtice

From Green Left Weekly, April 26, 2006.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 665