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Australia’s skydivers are planning to walk off the job today in what the union calls “unprecedented” industrial action.
In a press release the Australian Workers’ Union said skydiving instructors employed by tourism giant Experience Co would stop work at eight sites in Queensland, NSW and Victoria.
The union says most of the company’s 130 skydivers have seen little to no base wage increases in decades.
It follows 10 months of stalled negotiations for a first-ever enterprise agreement, the union said, claiming that the company’s wage proposals “included cuts of between $20,000 and $100,000 a year” and would slash the minimum annual wage for instructors to $49,000 from the current $57,000.
The cuts undermine the safety of every customer who straps into a tandem harness, the union said, claiming the company was trying to turn employees into “gig workers”.
“Tandem skydiving instructors literally take people’s lives in their hands every time they go to work,” said AWU national organiser Jonathan Cook.
“Would you want your mum strapped to an underpaid instructor?”
In a press release, Experience Co called the strike “unreasonable and irresponsible”.
“Skydive Australia is effectively a small business that proudly employs mostly young people in regional Australia,” CEO John O’Sullivan said.
It said it had engaged in good faith bargaining on the enterprise agreement, had made six offers that would “provide some of the best wages and conditions in the sector” but the union’s November ambit claim “would add massive costs that are simply not viable for the business”.
Welcome
Good morning and welcome to our live news blog. I’m Martin Farrer with the top overnight stories and then it will be Nick Visser with the main action.
If you were planning to fall out of the sky today we have bad news: in what the union calls “unprecedented” industrial action, skydiving instructors employed by a large tourism company are going on strike today in sites across the country, as pay talks stall with their employer.
Plus, the federal government has received the US’s review of the Aukus submarine deal.
More on both these stories, and other news, coming up.
