‘Bullied and harassed’: Qantas pilots accuse management of intimidation over pay

Preparing to strike this week, Perth-based Qantas pilots employed at its Network Aviation (NA) subsidiary have accused the company of intimidation, bullying and harassment as management threatened to withhold backpay as the two sides tussle over a long-overdue pay deal.

The claim comes as Qantas, in an attempt to cover NA flights, is upending its schedules on the east coast during the school holidays by cancelling flights and shifting aircraft to Western Australia. The WA subsidiary covers both the crucial mining sector in the state, transporting fly-in-fly-out (FIFO) workers, as well as a growing roster of commercial flights from Perth to regional destinations and Darwin.

Qantas management has targeted the pilots with communications over the past two weekends. The first was hand-delivered by courier; the second was sent by email. Couriers delivering the initial missive, a copy of which has been seen by Crikey, were required to take photos of their delivery and the families of some pilots ended up in these photos.

“I felt intimidated, threatened, bullied and harassed — and so did my colleagues,” one NA pilot told Crikey. ”What sort of company treats its people like this — especially after promising a new way of operating?”

The letter stated: “Importantly, the backpay to October 2022 is only available if the proposed agreement is voted up and approved. If the proposed agreement is not voted up the company would have to reconsider its position. This could mean all items currently agreed could be withdrawn … We may also need to consider options available under the Fair Work Act, including application for an intractable bargaining declaration”.

Qantas’ hardline attitude to staff has been underscored recently by the High Court’s determination that the airline illegally sacked 1,700 workers. 

Last week the main union representing NA pilots, the Australian Federation of Air Pilots (AFAP), advised Qantas of the pilots’ looming strike on Wednesday, October 4 — the first strike for Qantas pilots since 1966. The decision for industrial action was made after an overwhelming 99.5% of its members, who represent 85% of pilots at NA, voted in favour. The shrinking rump are represented by the Transport Workers’ Union and The Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA), which are the main unions for Qantas mainline.

In response to the planned industrial action, Qantas said that, as of this morning, it has cancelled 50% of the 50 or so daily flights flown by NA. In response to questions from Crikey, the airline said in a statement last night that it has “finalised contingency plans … to the planned industrial action”. 

“This includes redeploying Qantas 737 jets for intra-WA flying, utilising aircraft from other charter operators and moving some flights to other days. Where there are seats available, we’re also moving customers on to other airlines to minimise disruption to school holiday travel,” the company said. That will likely be cold comfort to those affected by the cancellations in the east coast schedule. For each 737 that is brought to Perth, between two and six flights will be cancelled.

AFAP senior industrial officer Chris Aikens told Crikey, “It is disappointing that Qantas management is not working on resolving this issue to avoid any industrial action for Western Australia’s travelling public. Instead of providing a reasonable offer to WA-based pilots that could potentially have suspended the stop-work action, the company appears to be putting its energy into trying to take B737 pilots away from eastern state passenger services to fly the lucrative charter contracts for the mining companies.”

“These B737 pilots are paid around 40% more than the network pilots who would have normally flown these charter and passenger flights around regional WA. This just reinforces the current inequitable situation where Network [Aviation] pilots’ pay and conditions are so much worse than their peers’ for essentially doing the same work. The Network pilots are simply asking for something that is affordable and sustainable for the company and its workforce.”

The decision by Qantas chief executive Vanessa Hudson to partly “break” the NA strike by using Qantas mainline pilots appears to fly in the face of her recent apologies by way of videos to staff and customers, as well as an unconvincing appearance before a Senate inquiry last week with her chair Richard Goyder, now universally described as “embattled”.

She is also forcing mainline pilots to be strike-breakers, as they will otherwise risk breaking their own contracts, pilots said.

“We know that post-COVID we haven’t always delivered to what our customers expect but we are listening and we hear what they are saying,” Hudson said in a recent video message.

“As a company, our job is to get the balance right between looking after our customers, you our people and the business itself. Right now achieving this balance must first start with our customers and that’s what we’ll be focused on with our management team.”

Still, amid disruptions the NA strike has on the mining sector, one can only imagine the pressure that Goyder has had from fellow West Australians Andrew Forrest and Gina Rinehart, as well as executives from BHP, Rio Tinto and other miners.

And here lies the exquisite dilemma that Hudson finds herself in only a month into the job: look after the company’s core corporate clientele or try and deliver on recent promises to improve things for regular punters. In today’s Australia, the corporations always win. 

Customers are unlikely to be heartened by Qantas’ claim that customers who won’t be able to travel “on Wednesday because of the work stoppages” will be contacted to “discuss alternative travel options” and that they can “request a full refund if they no longer wish to fly”.

Pilots from two other Qantas subsidiaries, Sunstate and Eastern Australia Airlines, are also negotiating with Qantas management over a new pay deal and have voted in favour of protected industrial action. But as yet, no decisions have yet been made.

NA chief operating officer Trevor Worgan claimed that the proposed agreement “offers our pilots significant pay rises and more guaranteed days off each roster period and we’re disappointed the AFAP has chosen to move towards industrial action while we have been trying to negotiate”.

The problem is that, in reality, it does not. At the core of the dispute is an enterprise agreement that expired on October 31, 2020, four years after it was signed in 2016. So NA pilots have not seen a pay increase in almost four years, a delay that has seen many fall below award rates of pay.

Pilots at NA and Qantas’ other regional subsidiaries have long complained of being treated as third-class workers, after those working for Qantas mainline and Jetstar.

“Network Aviation is the backbone of Qantas operations in Western Australia, it is a very successful and highly profitable part of the Qantas group,” another pilot said.

What used to be a small charter operator at Perth Airport has grown to cover all the regional ports in Western Australia and has replaced Qantas mainline services offering the same service at a significantly lower price. The aircraft are painted red and look the same as Qantas, but the pilots, cabin crew, engineers and ground staff earn significantly less than their Qantas counterparts for doing the same job — and work harder for less money.

“During COVID, Network Aviation continued to operate and actually expanded due to FIFO in Western Australia booming,” the pilot continued. “This more than doubled the flying time, but cost-cutting management did not double the pilot numbers, choosing to just work existing staff harder. The pilots earn 40% less than Qantas for doing an identical job. They also have significantly less benefits.”

Pilots who will fly Qantas 737s to cover some of the strike-affected NA schedule will receive almost double the salary of pilots flying similar A320 aircraft operated by NA.

Meanwhile, the threadbare state of Qantas’ maintenance and its lack of any backup aircraft for its long-haul routes continues to be exposed with a string of flight cancellations and delays pummeling passengers flying offshore during the school holidays.

For example, on September 23 Qantas cancelled two out of its three daily flights from Los Angeles to Australia. One of these was due to a sick pilot who could not be replaced because “no one will pick up the phone anymore”, according to an international pilot. This past weekend, Qantas QF1 to Singapore and London — an A380 — was delayed by 24 hours, as it had some air conditioning system work that needed to be done.

“As normal, no parts, no people and poor management,” an engineer explained.