Grounded, Frustrated and Angry

By Jeffery C. Rubin

Rarely since the Viet Nam War had an issue provoked Australians to stage such a large and angry public protest. Late last month 8,000 citizens linked arms to form an eight-mile chain along a Queensland beach to demonstrate against a three-month-old pilots' strike that has all but crippled the * country. Said Gabrielle Gibbs, a homemaker who organized the protest: "This incredible waste of human, financial and emotional resources must be stopped!"

Australia's 1,640 domestic airline pilots walked off the job to protest a 6% government ceiling on wage increases that was imposed on most of the country's workers as an anti-inflationary measure. The pilots, who earn an average of $61,000 a year, are demanding a 29.5% increase. To help out during the strike, the air force converted 14 military passenger aircraft to temporary commercial service. Australia's three domestic carriers, Ansett, East-West and Australian Airlines, have managed to maintain 40% of their daily flight schedules, in part by hiring foreign charters. (Qantas, an international carrier, is not affected by the strike.)

Since the strike began, air traffic has fallen from an average of 268,000 passengers a week to just 119,000 recently. In a sprawling land where air transportation is vital to daily commerce, the strike is strangling the economy. Hardest hit is tourism, Australia's largest industry. If the strike persists until Christmas, the country's tourism revenues could decline $500 million this year, a 30% drop from 1988. In Melbourne alone, 417 conferences and conventions have been canceled. Unless the strike is settled soon, travel industry experts say that three-fourths of Australia's large hotel chains will be forced to shut down. In a letter to Prime Minister Bob Hawke earlier this month, John McEvoy, managing director of the Metro Inns Hotel Group, predicted the imminent "collapse of thousands of businesses and jobs."

As the pain grows, the public is becoming furious with the pilots. In a Morgan Gallup poll taken last month, only 2% of the consumers surveyed said they support the strikers' wage demands. Bolstered by the customer outrage, airlines have stuck to their offer of a 6% raise, but only if the pilots agree to increase their average monthly flying schedule from 31 hours to 55. In an even tougher example of the airlines' stance, they flatly turned down an offer by the pilots to suspend the strike temporarily during the Christmas season. But if the strike carries on, spoiled holiday plans may be the least of Australia's problems.

With reporting by John Dunn/Melbourne