Qantas pilots 'distracted in cockpit' by dispute

A Qantas pilot has told how his colleagues are becoming distracted in the cockpit because of ongoing concerns about job security at the carrier.

Qantas pilot Eytan Herson was speaking at an event hosted by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) at the start of the Labor Party national conference in Sydney on Friday.

The ACTU was launching its 'Secure Jobs, Better Future' campaign to push for the federal Labor government to make it easier for the union to negotiate job security clauses.

"There's a range of responses we're going to be pursuing on the platform here," ACTU president Ged Kearney said.

Mr Herson, who is a member of the Australian and International Pilots Association (AIPA) which has recently been involved in an industrial dispute with Qantas, said pilots are now leaving the airline because of job security concerns.

"For the past three years there has been a constant threat of redundancy," Mr Herson, a Qantas pilot of 13 years experience said.

"You do not want a distracted pilot on the flight deck for one important reason; in a instant a tragic error could occur, putting lives at risk.

"For a pilot, the ongoing job security concern is a constant distraction from our work that is not in the best interests of a company which prides itself on its safety record."

Ms Kearney said about 25 per cent of Australia's workforce is in casual employment and many others hold in insecure jobs.

"But what we're seeing is a really worrying trend of people being forced to be independent contractors, when they're really not" she said,

"They turn up to work every day, they do the same job, they've got the same boss, there's nothing independent whatsoever."

 http://www.smh.com.au