Unions today said there were no guarantees the action would not disrupt travel to the Melbourne games.
They also refused to rule out escalating their campaign in their fight to extract a promise from Qantas to keep maintenance jobs in Australia.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), which together with the Australian Workers Union (AWU) represents 2100 of about 6900 Qantas maintenance workers, say they have notified authorities of their intention to take protected action from Thursday.
AMWU assistant national secretary Glenn Thompson said the low-level work-to-rule industrial action follows the airline's failure to meet a February 28 deadline to provide further information about job losses.
"We're not just indicating to Qantas (that we can take the action) – it is going ahead, it's as simple as that," Mr Thompson said.
Qantas has threatened to shift about 2500 maintenance jobs to Indonesia, China or New Zealand if it cannot get cost cuts which it says are needed to make it competitive against specialist maintenance companies.
But unions say the airline has failed to give a guarantee of job security in return for concessions during long-running enterprise bargaining talks.
AMWU national secretary Doug Cameron said the industrial action would initially affect the airline's maintenance timetable, which he said would take much longer under work-to-rule.
"The low-level industrial action will have an effect, it will put the maintenance timetable back," Mr Cameron said.
"We're simply saying to Qantas, you must sit down with us, you must guarantee that the workers ... shouldn't be threatened with their jobs going to China."
Asked whether the industrial action would affect the travelling public or those going to Melbourne for next week's Commonwealth Games, Mr Cameron said: "I can't tell you whether it will or won't."
"Industrial action is a last resort for the union. "But the issue for us is that Qantas has traded for years on it's image as the airline of Australia (so) if Qantas is going to move jobs to China then it's in for significant industrial action from its workers." Comment was being sought from Qantas.
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