Australia’s eastern skies will look a little less colourful as skydivers in three states keep their feet on the ground while pay negotiations drag on.

Skydivers employed by tourism giant Experience Co will on Friday walk off the job at eight sites in Queensland, NSW and Victoria after refusing multiple pay offers.

The company says its offers would make their employees some of the highest-paid in the industry, but their union says the proposals would turn skydivers into gig workers.

“Tandem skydiving instructors literally take people’s lives in their hands every time they go to work,” Australian Workers Union organiser Jonathan Cook said.

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“Would you jump out of a plane with an instructor who can’t afford to feed their family, while the company pockets millions?”

The disruption comes at one of the busiest times of the skydiving year, with Experience Co’s chief executive slamming “militant union bosses” for grounding dozens of flights.

“We call upon the union to reconsider its unreasonable and irresponsible industrial action,” John O’Sullivan said.

“We are at a loss to understand this action given the strength of our offers.”

The company has been in negotiations with its 129 skydivers since February, as they try to agree to terms on their first enterprise agreement.

Skydivers were brought in-house in 2022 and paid bonuses based on productivity, which the union says Experience Co wants to remove entirely.

They claim instructors would then only receive base salaries of about $50,000 and other workers could cop pay cuts of up to $100,000 under the company’s offers.

But Experience Co refutes the union’s claims and says its proposals have included “six-figure” salary offers.

Customers affected by the strike are being contacted directly and will be offered alternative options or full refunds.