Hundreds of Qantas engineers will walk off the job for 24 hours in an attempt to force airline management to negotiate their pay demands.
The industrial action by the engine components maintenance engineers in Melbourne will begin at 9am on Wednesday.
Heavy maintenance engineers in Brisbane downed tools at 1.30am.
Both groups, totalling about 300 engineers, are planning rallies outside the international terminal at Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport and Brisbane International Terminal later this morning.
The engineers’ current enterprise agreement expired at the end of June.
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The Qantas Engineers’ Alliance – made up of three unions – wants a pay rise of five per cent per year, with a 15 per cent first-year increase to compensate for 3.5 years of “wage freezes and as an industry catch-up payment”.
The alliance said Qantas management had refused to return to the bargaining table and increase its previous offer.
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