Hundreds of Qantas airport workers began a 24-hour strike this morning at Sydney, Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth. Their union, the Transport Workers' Union, says they want pay that matches industry standards. They're also after more full-time jobs and better safety on the ramp.
Those involved work for Qantas Ground Services, the freight operation Australian Air Express and the regional arm QantasLink. In Sydney they were joined by around 400 security screeners staging two separate two-hour walkouts, with another three-hour stoppage planned for Sunday.
If You're Flying Today
Less than the headline suggests, which is usually true of airport strikes. The striking staff mostly handle freight rather than Qantas mainline domestic and international flights. A smaller group supports QantasLink at Sydney.
Screener walkouts are the part passengers will feel. Fewer security lanes open means longer lines at Sydney, so if you're flying from there today, build in extra time. Check your flight status before leaving, and give yourself a bigger buffer than usual if you're connecting.
The Dispute
This one has been building for nearly a year. Both sides have been negotiating for around 11 months and stayed deadlocked at Australia's Fair Work Commission, the tribunal that handles industrial disputes. In a ballot, 97% of the 350 workers who voted backed taking action.
Structure is the union's specific complaint. Qantas splits these employees across different subsidiaries, and the TWU argues that fragments the workforce and drives down conditions. Union national secretary Michael Kaine called strike action a last resort, and said the airline needs a fundamental reset after years of cost-cutting.
There's history here too. Qantas outsourced more than 1,800 ground handling jobs during the pandemic, a decision the courts later found illegal, and a judge ordered the airline to pay a record fine of A$90 million over it.
Why Airport Strikes Keep Happening
Airport strikes hit somewhere in the world most months, and they're remarkably consistent in what causes them.
Airlines pushed ground work outside the company. Baggage handling, cleaning, catering and refueling were once done by airline staff, and so was screening. Most of it now sits with contractors and subsidiaries competing on price, which is exactly the setup that produces pay disputes.
A small group can stop a large operation. Two hundred refuelers or four hundred screeners can slow an airport in a way that two hundred office workers never could. That leverage is the point, and unions know precisely when to use it.
Margins are thin, so labor is where the savings come from. Airlines don't make much per ticket, even in good years. Fuel, aircraft and airport fees are largely fixed, which leaves wages as the flexible cost, and squeezing it repeatedly is what eventually produces a ballot.
Strike law makes them public and scheduled. In most countries, workers must give notice before striking. That's why you see announcements days ahead rather than surprise walkouts, and why airlines have time to cancel flights in advance.
Peak travel gives the most leverage. Strikes cluster around holidays and busy seasons because that's when a stoppage costs the employer most. That's also when it costs passengers most, which is the uncomfortable part of how this works.
Pandemic cuts are still working through the system. Airlines cut deep in 2020 and 2021, then rehired quickly when demand returned. A lot of today's disputes are workers trying to win back what they lost in those years.
If It's Your Flight
- Check whether your specific flight is affected, since most strikes cover a subset of an airline's operation rather than all of it.
- Watch for a travel waiver. Airlines usually let passengers rebook free during announced industrial action.
- Know your refund right. If your flight is canceled and you don't take the alternative, you're owed your money back, whatever the cause.
- Arrive earlier than you think you need to if screeners are involved, since that's the delay passengers feel most.
