SFWU seeks mediation with Air NZ over allegations of union discrimination

The Service and Food Workers Union is seeking urgent mediation to deal with alleged harassment of its union members by Air NZ managers.

The managers have been systematically phoning SFWU members and threatening them with dire consequences if they do not leave their union by Monday, 16 April.

SFWU Northern Region Secretary Jill Ovens says the union's members have been subjected to a "hard sell", with the company urging them to resign from the SFWU and join the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union.

The EPMU recently accepted a deal cutting its members' pay and conditions.

Ms Ovens says the SFWU has obtained a copy of an Air NZ script headed "Questions and answers to assist with the briefing of SFWU membership - not to be issued or distributed." The script is dated 3 April, the day the company hand-delivered letters to every SFWU member.

"Almost every question in the script begins with 'If I decide to resign from the SFWU...' and the suggested responses are clearly designed to persuade our members to leave our Union."

The script details how SFWU members should resign from their Union and join the EPMU in order to get a $1000 lump sum payment.

"Our members are told they must provide evidence of their resignation from the SFWU. Then the script tells the manager to advise our members to sign a pink slip granting bargaining authority to the EPMU."

Ms Ovens believes that the company's actions appear to be inconsistent with legislative obligations of unions to be at arms length from the employer.

"They shouldn't be telling their employees which union to join. They have gone so far as to say 'You're on your own if you stay with the union you're in, and you'll be looked after if you change unions."

Ms Ovens believes the Air NZ managers have been clearly overstepping the line in their threats to SFWU members.

"They cannot discriminate against workers applying for jobs on the basis of their union affiliation, yet they are telling part-timers they need not apply for fulltime jobs because these are not for SFWU members. And our members got letters saying SFWU members cannot apply for the new team manager positions."

The managers are telling SFWU members they will lose their jobs because the company plans to lock them out during the negotiations.

Ms Ovens says the SFWU has not initiated bargaining yet and the fact that Air NZ is already threatening members with a lock-out, suggests they are not planning to enter the negotiations in good faith.

She says members have been told their sick leave entitlement will reduce to the statutory minimum after the CEA expires on 30 June 2007.

"This is absolute rubbish. Under the Employment Relations Act, the CEA continues in force for a further 12 months after expiry once the union has initiated bargaining, which we fully intend to do. During this time there is no change to current terms and conditions, including sick leave entitlements."

Members have also been told their roster pattern would change if they stayed with the SFWU. Yet such changes are subject to two-month union/management consultation provisions.

Air New Zealand said "if SFWU members had on occasion been misinformed in the course of a call, it was not the norm". But Ms Ovens says the reports of the calls are too similar to be coincidental.

"This has been a deliberate campaign of disinformation to undermine the Union."

ENDS

© Scoop Media