Ground staff who are contracted to work in various Australian airports with Dnata, are planning a 24-hour strike on September 12. This will affect Qantas and at least 19 other airlines.
Dissatisfaction among the ground-handlers has seen the Transport Workers Union accuse Qantas management of turning “once sought-after aviation careers into insecure jobs no one can afford to stay in”.
Approximately 350 ground handlers from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane airports are involved in the industrial action.
Reports in Australia say that Qantas’s international flights are likely to be cancelled or delayed, and checked-in baggage not loaded. But, asked if the South African flights would be affected, Michi Messner, Qantas’s Regional Manager Africa, said the airline had contingency plans in place to minimise the impact on its customers.
Dnata is a Dubai-owned airport services company providing aircraft ground handling, cargo, travel, and flight catering services across five continents.
Negotiations between Dnata and the Transport Workers Union have been ongoing for some months. The union claims Qantas cut its own ground staff during the COVID-19 pandemic and then outsourced the work to outside contractors such as Dnata.
Aviation website Simple Flying says the union also claims that it was Qantas’s requirement for a ground-handler at the lowest possible cost that resulted in Dnata allegedly scaling back on overtime rates and allegedly failing to pay “fair wages”. The union blames Qantas for creating competition between the ground-handling companies Dnata, Swissport and Menzies Aviation in which they vied to satisfy the airline’s desire for the lowest operating costs “by any means possible”.
Dnata previously said that its salary offers were already highly competitive, but the union disagreed. “Qantas management’s strategy to dictate low wages and conditions from afar has turned once sought-after aviation careers into insecure jobs no one can afford to stay in. For many, it’s now a choice between going on strike for decent conditions or being forced to leave the industry.”
The strike action will probably exacerbate an existing unsatisfactory situation in Australian aviation where airlines and airports are battling shortages in manpower similar to those being experienced in Europe and the UK.
