Asia Times: Qantas strike continues despite US attacks


	September 13, 2001	atimes.com

Oceania

Qantas strike continues despite US attacks

Sydney - A 24-hour strike was upheld by hundreds of Qantas maintenance workers on Wednesday despite the airline's plea to postpone it due to the worldwide disruption to air services after terrorist attacks in the United States.

But around 4,500 of the carrier's check-in staff, telephone sales and reservation staff agreed to halt their action. Qantas management this morning called on unions to postpone nationwide strike action in the wake of the US tragedy. More than half the airline's 26,000 staff were to take partin industrial action nation-wide.

Australian Services Union (ASU) assistant national secretary Linda White said that check-in staff, telephone sales and reservation workers met early on Wednesday at airports across the country and agreed to hold-off planned three-hour stoppages. However, Qantas said that several hundred maintenance workers from the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) at the airline's hangars in Sydney and Melbourne rejected requests to call off a 24-hour strike.

"The ASU members are back at work," a spokesman said. "The AMWU rejected our request to return to work and they won't be back for 24 hours." But the spokesman said that the strike by maintenance workers is having no impact on services.

The workers walked off the job at midnight, dissatisfied with progress in pay talks. The ASU said that about 4,500 check-in staff, telephone sales and reservation staff had agreed to hold off on the industrial action in the wake of the US situation because "some events are bigger than our differences". "Qantas asked us not to [strike] and ... it was agreed to postpone the action until the crisis abates because obviously the feeling was it has to be all hands to the wheel," White said.

The union said that Qantas staff have also volunteered to help the airline deal with the crisis. But White said that the workers have not ruled out taking action after the current crisis is resolved. "This is not a signal that there will be no industrial action in the future," she said. "It was not a decision taken lightly and it was taken in exceptional circumstances. It is a wake-up call to Qantas to realize that staff are vital and that the airline is a team effort."

(Asia Pulse)