Qantas is handing out $1000 "thank you" payments to 27,000 of its employees as it hopes to defuse industrial action by some of its engineers.
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Around 400 engineers with the Alliance Unions, responsible for tasks such as towing aircraft and conducting safety checks before departure, were taking industrial action across all major airports on Friday.
Qantas said the workers had been engaging in industrial action since late September and contingencies were in place to deal with it without impacting customers.
The roughly 400 engineers on shift during the work action represented only a portion of the company's full engineering workforce of close to 2600, Qantas said.
Several dozen chanting members from several unions protested outside Qantas's annual general meeting at a Hobart hotel on Friday.
"We want to send Vanessa a message. Today is just a taste of the kind of action our members are capable of," Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union national secretary Steve Murphy said, referring to Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson.
"Industrial action is meant to be inconvenient. It is inconvenient for the public on occasions but this time it is inconvenient for the managers who are being the band-aid solution to Qantas's ignorance of the problem."
The workers say they are after a pay rise of five per cent per year, with a 15 per cent first-year increase to compensate for three-and-a-half years of wage freezes.
They say Qantas has refused to up its initial offer of three per cent per year.
Inside the meeting, Ms Hudson told shareholders that Qantas was keen to get back to the negotiating table with the union.
"At the moment, the union or many of their members have chosen to take industrial action, but we're really hopeful. We think there is a pathway to a resolution," she said.
"We want that because that's going to put more money in the hands of our people, but we also want to find that way of working better with unions."
The Qantas board avoided a humiliating "second strike" over executive pay at the annual general meeting after shareholders in 2023 rejected the company's remuneration report.
Before the meeting, 85.8 per cent of votes had been cast for the report and just 14.1 per cent against, meaning it would get the 75 per cent majority necessary to avoid a possible board spill.
Qantas said the group continued to see its first half trading in line with expectations, and revenue from Jetstar's domestic unit had been outperforming previous expectations due to stronger-than-anticipated travel demand.
Qantas forecast that at current prices it would spend $2.55 billion on fuel in the first half, less than previous guidance of $2.7 billion.
The airline noted, however, that geopolitical events were causing ongoing volatility in fuel prices that could have immediate impacts should they escalate or de-escalate.
Australian Associated Press
