00:01Well, this 24-hour strike is happening across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth airports
00:08today and the union is striking over a long-running pay dispute between those unionised Qantas
00:15freight workers and the airline itself.
00:18Now, we're expecting about 600 workers to walk off the job today and they're demanding
00:23secure employment, fairer pay and also safer working conditions.
00:28Last year in September, a worker here at Sydney Airport, a ground worker, was actually killed
00:36when he was working on the tarmac and that's one of those demands just to make the workplace
00:43more safer for workers here.
00:45Let's take a listen to what one of the union heads had to say earlier this morning here
00:50at Sydney Airport.
00:52You've got to remember, this is a workforce that got this company through COVID.
00:56They stuck with this company through thick and thin when times were tough, they went
01:00through the wage cuts, they went through the wage freezes, you know, they had wages policies
01:05before that of no more than 3% a year.
01:07Unfortunately for these people now, they are in a worse state in real terms than they were
01:12a decade ago before COVID.
01:13Now, there's little impact to customers and Qantas says it's had contingency plans in place
01:19since they knew about this industrial action today.
01:23The only impact really would be there may be some impact on Qantas link flights out of
01:28Sydney to regional parts of New South Wales.
01:31But I've been checking the board and I can't see any cancellations or any flights being pushed
01:36back in time.
01:37And Qantas has said in a statement that it's committed to working towards the pay conditions
01:45that these workers are asking for.
01:48So we'll have to wait and see in the coming weeks whether this dispute wraps up.
