Airline passengers planning to travel over the school holidays are facing a nervous wait over the next 48 hours, with crisis talks between the Aviation Branch of the United Firefighters Union (UFU) and airport operator Airservices Australia remaining deadlocked ahead of Monday’s scheduled national four-hour airports strike.
The UFU said on Thursday there had still been no breakthrough in the negotiations over minimum staffing levels the union is pushing for. These have been roped into the bargaining process for pay and conditions where the federal employers’ hands have been effectively tied by the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC) after it sealed a deal with the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU).
Unions outside the CPSU are not accepting the deal because, among several other things, the 11.2% wage rise the CPSU agreed to offset otherwise higher pay for a workplace right to flexible work that cannot be extended to police, firies, tradies and field staff, leaving frontline workers behind desk drivers.
The Australian Federal Police is also targeting airports for industrial action, via marked police vehicles festooned with union campaign messages under protected action, including cars operating on the tarmac; air traffic controllers covered by Civil Air have applied to take action.
A raft of other federal employees are also taking or have taken strike action, ranging from Antarctic ice breaker crews to plumbers and sparkies working at Parliament House.
Aviation firies are particularly incensed over staffing levels during operational and for there to be insufficient crew available in the event of a major incident.
“Passenger aircraft carry thousands of litres of highly flammable aviation fuel, which burns much faster and more intensively than petrol or diesel,”
“When things go wrong with a large passenger aircraft carrying 350 people, they can go wrong very, very quickly,” UFU—Aviation Branch secretary Wes Garrett said.
“Australia’s air travellers rightly expect that well-equipped, fully staffed aviation firefighters will be on the scene to protect and rescue them from a burning aircraft within three minutes, and that’s what securing our minimum staffing clause will achieve.”
Airservices referred back to its previous statement on the strike, in which it said threatened “to disrupt the travel plans of thousands of Australians who are still enjoying the school holidays.”
Airservices has previously said the industrial dispute “has nothing to do with staffing levels, which are monitored and regulated by CASA as the aviation safety regulator.”
“Airservices has sufficient ARFF personnel to meet our regulatory obligations and is investing $1 billion over the next 10 years in equipment and facilities for our ARFF crews.”
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