Qantas, Transport Workers Union fail to reach agreement.
Qantas has just issued a stock exchange announcement stating that it will submit to binding arbitration by Fair Work Australia over its dispute with the Transport Workers Union.
CEO Alan Joyce said that the airline’s preferred option had been to resolve the dispute via negotiations, but it was now time to allow the independent upire to bring the matter to a close.
“We made a generous offer which included reasonable increases in pay and conditions, protections on the jobs of existing Qantas employees and Qantas maintaining the flexibility we need to run the airline. The union rejected this offer,” he said.
“We did make some progress but we simply cannot agree to all of the union’s demands. We cannot give in to demands that we hand over control of parts of the airline to the union”.
The Fair Work Australia order requires the cessation of all industrial action by the TWU, meaning it cannot strike during the arbitration period or from the term of the determination by the commission, which can be for up to four years.
“We want to provide certainty for our customers and bring this issue to a close as quickly as possible,” Joyce said.
He added that the Federal Government had indicated that it would “vigorously defend” legal action flagged by the TWU challenging the Fair Work Australia decision to terminate industrial action, with the govt “confident the TWU will not be successful”.
More information in tomorrow’s Travel Daily.