One of Australia’s biggest companies gives every employee $1,000 as a ‘thank you’

Qantas is handing out a $1,000 thank you gift to 27,000 of its employees in the hope of defusing industrial action by some of its engineers.

About 400 engineers from the Alliance Unions, responsible for tasks such as towing aircraft and carrying out security checks before departure, took strike action at all major airports on Friday.

Qantas said workers had been engaged in industrial action since late September and emergency measures had been put in place to deal with this without impacting customers.

The approximately 400 engineers who worked shifts during the work represented only part of the company’s entire engineering workforce of almost 2,600, Qantas said.

Several dozen singing members of various unions protested outside Qantas’ annual general meeting at a Hobart hotel on Friday.

‘We want to send Vanessa a message. Today is just a taste of the kind of action our members are capable of,” said Steve Murphy, national secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, referring to Qantas CEO Vanessa Hudson.

“Industrial action is meant to be uncomfortable. Sometimes it’s uncomfortable for the public, but this time it’s uncomfortable for the executives who are the band-aid solution to Qantas’ ignorance of the problem.”

The workers say they are looking for a five percent pay increase per year, with a 15 percent increase in the first year to offset three and a half years of pay cuts.

They say Qantas has refused to increase its original offer of three percent per year.

During the meeting, Ms Hudson told shareholders that Qantas was keen to get back to the negotiating table with the union.

“At this point the union or many of their members have chosen to take industrial action, but we are hopeful. We believe there is a path to a solution,” she said.

“We want that because it puts more money in the hands of our people, but we also want to find a way to work better with the unions.”

The money is being distributed in the hope of defusing the industrial action

Qantas’ board avoided a humiliating ‘second strike’ over executive pay at its annual general meeting after shareholders rejected the company’s 2023 remuneration report.

Before the meeting, 85.8 percent of votes had been cast in favor of the report and only 14.1 percent against, meaning it would receive the 75 percent majority needed to avoid a possible wastage of governance.

Qantas said the group continued to see first-half trading in line with expectations, with revenue from Jetstar’s domestic unit exceeding previous expectations due to stronger-than-expected travel demand.

Qantas forecasts that at current prices it will spend $2.55 billion on fuel in the first half of the year, down from its previous forecast of $2.7 billion.

However, the airline noted that geopolitical events were causing continued volatility in fuel prices, which could have immediate consequences if they were to escalate or de-escalate.