Travellers have been warned to prepare for delays this Easter long weekend, as custom workers at local international airports walk off the job for 24-hours.
Immigration, Border Protection and Agricultural workers will stop work at international airport for 24 hours on 24 March – the day before Good Friday. This follows today’s one-day strike by staff at Medicare, Centrelink, the Tax Office, Defence, the Bureau of Meteorology, the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet and the Bureau of Statistics.
Strikes will continue over the Easter holidays, with airport stoppages rolling out over the next few weeks, The Canberra Times reported.
Thousands of travellers are expected to be affected by the airport walk outs, however, The Australian Public Service’s union leader, Nadine Flood, said its necessary to end a two-year wage dispute.
“Two years into this dispute, these workers still face an attack on their family-friendly rights and other conditions of work.”
Nadine Flood, The Australian Public Service Union Leader
“The extent of this mess is underlined by the fact that after two years more than eight out of 10 people working in the public sector still don’t have a new agreement.”
According to Ms Flood, strikes were organised after the Prime Minister “ignored, requests for urgent talks to fix his Government’s bargaining mess”.
She continued, explaining that domestic violence leave had been removed from some agreements and others have suffered from a two-year wage freeze.
In the lead up to strikes, Phil Sylvester from TID is urging travellers to check their insurance and whether it will cover the cost of any cancellations or missed flights.
While some policies won’t cover cancellations by airport strikes, he said it’s important for travellers to ensure they’re covered for any potential “medical costs, baggage loss and all the other benefits”.
“A cancelled departure flight doesn’t mean you can rack-up an overnight stay in a swanky hotel while you wait for the next one, but you could reasonably claim the cost of the additional taxi fares to get you back the next day,” he said.
“Remember, the onus is on you to look for ways to keep the additional expenses as low as possible – it’s in the PDS you said you’d read and agreed to. You did read it before signing, right?”
