Qantas Strike Off

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31223, 22 November 1966, Page 17

Qantas Strike Off

(N.Z. Press Assn. —Copprtsht? MELBOURNE, Nov. 21.

A threatened strike tomorrow by 400 Qantas pilots has been averted by a six-hour meeting in Melbourne today between officials of the Australian Federation of Airline Pilots and the secretary for the Department of Labour, Sir Henry Bland.

The meeting ended with the federation agreeing to meet

with the deputy chief executive of Qantas, Captain R. J. Ritchie, in Sydney on Wednesday. In the meantime, the federation undertook to take no strike action.

Today’s meeting was called by Sir Henry Bland after negotiations between the federation and Qantas on a long list of differences broke down.

Outstanding issues in the dispute are on salary claims by pilots. The pilots say that Qantas has refused to adjust salaries to maintain the previous relation to the salaries paid pilots on domestic airlines.

Qantas had also refused to take into account the salaries paid by other international operators, they say. Qantas pilots also objected to operating midnight flights in Djakarta because, they claimed, landing aids were not up to standard. But the Department of Civil Aviation has approved landing facilities at Djakarta as it has also approved proposals to operate short-distance flights with two pilots instead of three as used on long hauls.

This proposal too, was objected to by the pilots.