10 December 2005
Unions fail to confront Government over Air NZ plans
Rather than confront the Government over Air NZ plans to shut-down its heavy engineering aircraft repair operations,
unions have turned to an anti-union accounting firm to come up with a cost-saving scheme at the expense of workers'
conditions.
The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and the Aviation and Marine Engineers Association (AMEA) have
put up a plan that would save only half of the 600 jobs that would be lost if the engineering work was outsourced
off-shore.
Not only would more than 300 jobs disappear, the workers who remain would have to take a major wage cut and yet still be
expected to do the same or more work.
Instead of making concessions, the Alliance says the unions should be waging a campaign to force the Government, which
owns 82 per cent of Air NZ, to take full control of the airline and ensure the engineering repair facilities are kept
open.
Alliance co-leader Len Richards says the unions have buckled under to the blackmail of the company, which is cynically
using the threat of a complete closure of the repair workshops to extract "voluntary" concessions from the workers.
The unions have hired Michael Stiassny of the accountancy firm Ferrier Hodgson who has come up with a plan that will
mean far-reaching changes in work conditions in the hope that enough money can be saved to convince the company to save
300 engineers' jobs.
The Alliance says Mr Stiassny is not known as a workers' champion. He specialises in company restructuring and
insolvency. He chairs the Board of the lines company Vector and Auckland's corporatised water company, Metrowater. He
also holds directorships in a number of other companies including Metlifecare, a major player in the aged care industry
currently under attack in a corporate takeover bid by the Australian McQuarrie Bank.
He told the NZ Herald it was "phenomenal" and an "amazing surprise", to see "how far the [union] delegates and members
have moved on labour reform". It is "unusual", he crowed, "to see a union make those ... deliverables" and Air NZ should
take advantage of these concessions.
Andrew Little, the national secretary of the EPMU, described the accountants' plan as a viable alternative, but in
selling workers' conditions in return for an unenforceable undertaking that some jobs will be saved, Mr Little and the
unions are playing right into the company's hands, Mr Richards says.
The company that Mr Stiassny works for is known as a "corporate undertaker", having dealt with several high profile
company receiverships. In one, a so-called "Phoenix" scheme in 1998, a stevedoring company went into receivership and
then arose from its own ashes under a new name.
"This was done to cheat laid-off wharfies out of their holiday and redundancy pay," Mr Richards says. "The wharfies,
through the liquidator, successfully sued Ferrier Gibson for nearly $2 million. To think such a company would act in the
interests of Air NZ engineers, as Andrew Little obviously does is, at the very least, the height of naivety."
Only a few days before the presentation of the union concessions to Air NZ, the company said that even a 25 per cent cut
in labour costs for the engineers would not be enough to save their jobs.
"In fact Air NZ said only across-the-board concessions from all 2100 engineering workers could see some of the heavy
engineering jobs saved. Air NZ management said even changes in shift patterns, removal of penal rates and an 'hours
bank' to manage the work load would not be cheaper than outsourcing," Mr Richards says.
The Alliance says the loss of our country's heavy aircraft repair capacity would be a major blow to our strategically
important transport infrastructure. The Labour-led government should act in the interests of the people who elected it
and protect the 600 jobs at risk while ensuring New Zealand continues to have a viable national airline.
"Privatisation of transport has been a disaster for New Zealand as has been seen in the fiascos dogging the railways and
bus companies. An integrated, planned transport system is only possible through public ownership and democratic
control," Mr Richards says.
The Alliance is calling on the unions to consider an Argentinean-style occupation of the workshops in both Auckland and
Christchurch.
"Such an occupation would win wide community support. It's not only about the job losses. These workshops are assets
owned by the people of New Zealand and should remain so."
ENDS