A union representing Qantas engineers announced it will begin one-hour work stoppages next week that will last until the week before Christmas.

Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) Federal Secretary Steve Purvinas said they’ve been negotiating with the airline for job security terms for nearly 12 months and any progress that had been made has now been eliminated with Qantas announcing its intention to shrink Qantas in favour of new companies based in Asia.

“The ALAEA cannot accept claims by the airline that its International arm is losing money when load factors are higher than they have ever been and fuel is 25 per cent cheaper than their most profitable year in 2008.

“We are concerned that Qantas has announced 1000 job losses but has signalled that this is just the initial stage of the transformation plans.

The industrial action will commence Thursday 25th August 2011 and ongoing until Friday 16th December 2011 inclusive.

To prevent disruption of Qantas flights Australian Licensed Aircraft Engineers Association (ALAEA) members will be available to work overtime to cover all stoppages.

Mr Purvinas said, “We acknowledge the needs of customers and for this reason we will offer to provide replacement workers to Qantas left short of labour. Should Qantas refuse our offer, disruptions would be of their own making.