3,800 Qantas staff plan four-hour walkout

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Australian carrier Qantas said it was readying contingency plans Wednesday after 3,800 baggage handlers, ground staff and other employees announced a four-hour walkout next week.

The national strike by the Transport Workers Union (TWU) during next Tuesday's morning peak -- 5am to 9am -- would be accompanied by running work bans that could affect flights for up to two days, Qantas said.

"Our priority is to the Australian travelling public and we are currently developing contingency plans to minimise disruptions to our customers as a result of the union’s action," said Qantas media chief Olivia Wirth.

She said the TWU was "effectively holding passengers to ransom as it seeks pay rises" by "intentionally disrupting the travel plans of Australians".

"We encourage the TWU to continue negotiations rather than going on strike." Scott Connolly, lead negotiator for the TWU, said the walkout and bans on performing higher duties or doing paperwork followed a breakdown in negotiations over pay and conditions.

"TWU members will take this industrial action as Qantas has left them with no choice," Connolly said.

"TWU members have been patient and negotiated in good faith. Qantas has however sought to frustrate every move to secure our members' jobs and decent pay and conditions."

Over the past month Connolly said Qantas had recorded annual profit of $250 million, more than doubling last year's result, and handed chief executive Alan Joyce a 71 percent pay rise to $5 million.

It has also announced a controversial Asia-focussed restructure of its international operations that will see 1,000 workers sacked, and Connolly said staff had "had enough" of the airline's 'stonewalling'.

But Wirth condemned their demands as excessive and unreasonable and said the strike was part of a coordinated industrial campaign between the TWU, the pilots' union and its licensed aircraft engineers.

"While Qantas is focused on building a better airline for our customers, employees and shareholders, the unions are taking coordinated action to disrupt passengers," she said.

The airline is locked in a bitter industrial dispute with its pilots, who have taken low-level protest action but not yet resorted to full-blown strikes.

Engineers have also downed tools for one-minute periods and worked with just one hand as part of their token campaign.

Angered by the Asia re-branding plan, both groups have warned that they will step up their actions without assurances about jobs and conditions from Qantas.