By NOEL MURPHY
FIFTY-FOUR Qantas engineering staff leave Avalon Airport this Friday, marking the end of an era and 16 years of heavy maintenance work at the aerospace precinct.
The job losses, brought forward a week, will take the total cuts at Avalon to more than 300 after 250 Forstaff Aviation contractors departed last month.
Qantas has cut 1500 staff from its engineering operations over the past 18 months with the closure of Avalon and Melbourne Airport maintenance functions and the relocation of all work to Brisbane.
Avalon workers yesterday complained a labour hire firm had cut pay rates at Brisbane, stymying their plans to commute and share accommodation in Queensland.
The Avalon sackings, impending closure of Alcoa and Ford plants operations and the sacking of hundreds at Target’s North Geelong headquarters will leave thousands of Geelong workers displaced or facing job losses.
Qantas engineer Tim O’Connor described the mood at Avalon this week as “pretty upbeat with a lot of black humour”, although the workers were “very sad” about permanently leaving life-long careers.
“They’re pretty cheesed off at what’s happened, with the airline and what’s going on there,” Mr O’Connor said.
“But we know there are no other options, so we’ll try to make the most of what we’ve got. It’s a bit sad.”
Forstaff workers wrapped up at Avalon a fortnight ago to polite fanfare from Qantas executives, a luncheon and presentations of commemorative glass tailplane mementoes and photo albums.
Mr O’Connor said few had alternative employment and only five of the 54 leaving this week had aircraft work to pursue – in Brisbane and Perth.
The long-running Qantas work at Avalon peaked with about 1000 jobs a decade ago until several sacking tranches in the past two years.
Qantas did not return calls and emails for comment before the Independent went to press.
The Independent was unable to gain comment from Avalon Airport management.
