International email campaign raises Air NZ's hackles

The Service and Food Workers Union has just received an update from Eric Lee of the international website Labour Start saying that in less than a week since the campaign against outsourcing was launched, more than 4000 messages have been sent to Air NZ, with more than 800 coming from Australia. He says it is one of the biggest international campaigns ever.

Service and Food Workers Union Northern Regional Secretary Jill Ovens says that Air NZ CEO Rob Fyfe has been responding to the international messages with a form letter in which he states that the SFWU represents "a minority of members" at Air NZ.

"In fact, we represent the majority of check-in staff at Auckland International airport, the biggest airport in New Zealand. It is at this airport and among our members that the multi-national outsource provider, Swissport, claims it can do the job with 18% fewer staff and a 25% cut in our members' pay," Ms Ovens says.

This level of staffing cuts is far greater than any other part of the ground-handling operation.

Along with the EPMU, the SFWU has been engaged in discussions with Air NZ since May 2006 to try to find a "competitive in-house solution" to keep ground-handling services in-house.

But the unions' proposal, which included $9 million in productivity gains, was rejected outright by Air NZ as it did not give them the cuts in penal rates and allowances that they wanted. The company also demanded "flexibility" in rosters and new pay scales based on "clusters of skills" with ranges of rates.

"This was completely unacceptable to our members," Ms Ovens says. "The company was holding a gun to our head at a time when we couldn't legally take strike action."

It is important to note that the two unions' Collective Employment Agreements do not expire till 30 June 2007. Under New Zealand labour law, workers cannot take industrial action while their CEA is still in force, unless there are health and safety issues at stake.

"We offered to go into negotiations to discuss issues such as roster patterns as soon as bargaining is initiated in three months time.

"We have information that Air NZ deliberately planned to put up the outsourcing plan during the term of the Agreement when our members could not go on strike. Thus it is our strong belief that the outsourcing threat was a cynical ploy to get the unions to offer up concessions to keep the workers' jobs in-house."

The deadline set by the Employment Court for finding a mediated alternative proposal to keep services in-house was 26 January. The SFWU engaged with Air NZ right up till that date, a 9-month period that saw our team of delegates in talks with the employer for months on end. During this time, the SFWU produced three submissions that involved hours of research, deliberation and preparation.

"At the end of all this 'engagement', the company presented an all-or-nothing package that our members rejected. Since then, the EPMU has continued to engage with the employer in a confidential process.

"We asked Rob Fyfe to show us his so-called 'blueprint' that he has talked about in the media because our members want to know what it is, but he refuses to give us any details. We suspect it is nothing more than the package of four demands that the company put up in January."

This is part of a pattern by Air NZ that started with heavy engineering, then aircraft cleaning, then finance, and now ground-handling. Air crew think they could be the next target.

"On and on till Air NZ is nothing but a virtual airline with a few highly paid managers managing outsource provider contracts," Ms Ovens says.

The SFWU's position has always been that the only way to stop the outsourcing is to call on the public to support our Air NZ workers.

"We are asking ordinary people to call on the Government to exercise its right as the majority shareholder to get its Government-appointed Board members to control the current ideologically-driven management.

"We do not think this struggle will be won in confidential talks with Air NZ management, nor in the law Courts. We, the people, own Air NZ. It is up to us to act now to support the workers and to maintain the integrity of our national airline.

"Our members very much appreciate the international support."

ENDS

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