Almost 500 Qantas engineers have walked off the job for 24 hours

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Major disruptions at airports around the country have so far been voided after around 500 Qantas engineers began a 24-hour strike over an ongoing pay dispute

Transcript

00:00Despite fears that a walk-off by hundreds of Qantas workers around the country could

00:07have spelled chaos for Sydney Airport on one of the busiest travel days of the year, any

00:11major problems have been avoided for now.

00:15As you can see behind me, the terminal here at Sydney Airport is remarkably calm.

00:19Qantas did say they had contingencies in place for any industrial action, which does make

00:23sense as they have experience dealing with this sort of strike, as only six weeks ago

00:28engineers walked off the job as well.

00:30The union did say they expected delays almost immediately from the walk-off as the engineers

00:36that were striking are responsible for towing and marshalling the aircrafts, but as long

00:40as we've been here, we've seen a handful of cancellation and delays, but so far it's uncertain

00:46if those are related purely to the industrial action or other issues outside of the aircraft's

00:51control.

00:52Now, what the union and Qantas are having a disagreement over is negotiations about

00:56a pay rise.

00:57The negotiations have been going on since April and completely broke down recently.

01:02The union is pushing for a 15% upfront pay rise with an extra 5% in the following years,

01:08while Qantas says their proposal is competitive at 3% increase over three years.

01:14Now, if negotiations aren't resolved in the next week, it is expected that there will

01:19be more strike action next Friday.

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