More cutbacks at Qantas

Qantas to cut 263 Avalon engineers

HUNDREDS of maintenance engineers at Qantas' Avalon base were downcast but not surprised to learn 263 would lose their jobs.

the Age,

9 November, 2012

The airline has announced it will cut 500 jobs from Sydney and Avalon airports as it moves more heavy maintenance work to Brisbane, where about 100 jobs will be created.

The Victorian cuts target engineers who have been reconfiguring nine of Qantas' 18 Boeing 747-400 aircraft, with the last of the jumbos to be updated by the end of the month.

Australian Workers Union Victorian secretary Cesar Melhem condemned Qantas' decision. ''I am disgusted with the approach Qantas have taken,'' Mr Melhem said. ''They may as well close the place down because we are only going to be left with half the workforce.''

Aircraft maintenance engineer William Brinsmead lost his job following the collapse of Ansett in 2001, and was upset to learn yesterday that he could be made redundant. He said the airline industry had boiled down to a ''survival of the fittest''.

''Since 9/11 there have been 50 airlines around the world that have gone into bankruptcy, it's a business that requires high overheads with manpower and the cost of aviation fuel,'' he said.

The softly spoken worker, 65, has been a contractor for Qantas for more than six years, and said he has no intention of trying to transfer to a new job up in Brisbane.

He said his skills were not transferable to other industries and he hoped to find more contract work and then retire.

Another contractor, who did not want to be named, said the axe that had been swinging over their heads for six months had finally dropped.

Mr Melhem said Qantas had consulted neither the unions nor the workforce. ''This one just came out of the blue in a typical Qantas way of doing business in this country.''

Mr Melhem said workers had been optimistic about the viability of the heavy maintenance base after the recent announcement that Avalon would become the state's second international airport.

He met workers just six months ago and told them on behalf of Qantas that they were likely to have a job for the next two years.

In May, when Qantas announced the closure of its heavy-maintenance base at Tullamarine with the loss of 422 jobs, Premier Ted Baillieu told Parliament the government's efforts had been ''critical to ensuring that Avalon remains as a heavy-maintenance facility''.

Yesterday, shadow minister for employment Tim Pallas said ''the fact these workers are out of jobs is a clear sign of how disinterested this government is in rolling their sleeves up and doing something''.

But Mr Baillieu said the state government had done all it could. ''Qantas have made it very clear to us … that we could not have done more to retain that work,'' he said.

Mr Baillieu said Qantas had already flagged more job cuts once the work on the 747s was complete.

''We said that there would be 500 continuing jobs and that was the case. But there was always the issue about the reconfiguration program concluding,'' Mr Baillieu said.

Steve Purvinas, federal secretary of the Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association, said those who lost their jobs would struggle to adapt.

''They have qualifications that are not easily transportable into any other industries,'' Mr Purvinas said. ''They can't sit a one-week course and become household electricians. These are aircraft people.''