'Greedy' EPMU hits Air NZ at worst possible time
Air New Zealand says it will not be intimidated by “greedy unions” after the EPMU announced Easter strike action by some of the airline’s cabin crew.
The industrial action will involve 250 flight attendants employed by Air New Zealand subsidiary Zeal 320 who work on international short-haul routes.
The strike begins on Wednesday April 8 and ends on Saturday April 11 and will not affect either domestic or long-haul operations.
From this Saturday workers will start their industrial action by not wearing uniforms and refusing to do some paperwork, and from next Wednesday they will refuse to fill in for colleagues.
This will cause a headache for Air New Zealand, as it will have trouble filling crew requirements at short notice.
Zeal flight attendants represented by the EPMU recently voted to reject the company offer of a 4.5% pay increase for 15 months.
According to EPMU national aviation organiser Strachan Crang, the workers employed by Zeal get paid less than cabin crew employed directly by Air New Zealand.
“Our members at Zeal work the same jobs as Air New Zealand-employed cabin crew in the same uniform and to the same destinations onboard Air New Zealand planes. Nobody would know they were not Air New Zealand crew,” he says.
“But they are paid tens of thousands of dollars a year less than crew who work directly for Air New Zealand and over the last six months the company has made it clear it is not going to change that situation.”
He says more than a third of the workers have second jobs, many are living off debt and many cannot even afford to buy food while on duty overseas.
Choosing to strike was “the last option available,” Mr Crang says.
But Air New Zealand general manager Tasman Pacific Airline Glen Sowry says the claims of poverty are “simply preposterous” and do not reflect reality.
He says under the rejected offer the Zeal cabin crew could earn between $40,000 and $60,000 a year.
“Air New Zealand has shown over the past several years it will not be intimidated or yield to industrial action by greedy unions that are out of touch with reality, particularly at a time when the global economy is melting down and people around the world are thankful for employment,” Mr Sowry says.
“We’re astounded EPMU President Andrew Little has been able to convince members to forego an opportunity to increase their take home pay by 4.5% when thousands of New Zealanders across the country are losing their jobs.
“We offered a very good pay increase at a time when we’re also trying to do everything we can for our people and avoid redundancies like we saw recently with 100 long-haul cabin crew losing their jobs as a result of softening passenger demand.”
He says the EPMU is seeking base salary increases of up to 26% and allowance increases of 70%.
Mr Sowry says the strike action has been timed to ensure “maximum disruption”, and the airline is working on contingency plans to minimise any disruption for passengers.
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Comments and questions16
When the President of the Labour Party is doing his other full-time job as head of the EPMU, surely we should expect him to look for pay increases of 25%+ in an enterprise that is virtually Government Owned and at a time when people all over the world are looking for ways to stay in employment at almost any cost as it always pays better than the dole>
get real people - if your meal allowance when overnighting in Australia isn't enough to eat dinner in a four-star hotel, do what the rest of us do - go find a nice restaurant, with better food than most hotels, eat the food, drink the wine, give a tip AND STILL have enough left for the cab fare back to the hotel!
just incredible that andrew little can expectt to be labour president and head the epmu. he should be voted out by the union
as a former member of the EPMU, I think that the EPMU organisation has lost all cedibility with Mr Little's new labour party position. this is the main reason I and many of my workmates have recently changed from the EPMU. It is hard to tell, when you see Mr Little on the news, if his opinion on some story (and he has a lot of opinions in the last couple of months) is that of the EPMU or that of the Labour party.
Mr Little is looking after Mr Little.
We want to ban Gangs, what about some of the largest organised crime rackets in this country - the unions.
These people that want to strike really need to do the math, how many hours at their new rate will they have to work to get back the lost days wages? It is simply not worth it, the unions know that but thats the whole game.
Leila Hararre was on the news a couple of years ago during a strike and encouraging the workers who probably can least afford it to hold out and hold out.... ...but wait she's still on the clock right? what is it for her? more face time on the 6 o'clock news.
Ditch the unionist parasites work hard and honestly and you will get what you deserve. Good workers are always in demand. You will never get something for nothing. You go on strike, middle management will notice and you will never get of the bottom rung.
Time to bash some letter boxes.
I am a Zeal flight attendant and I am astounded at some of these comments people have made. We all know not to believe everything that the media has told you. Many comments are very deceiving! I sure as hell don't earn even $40k (incl allowances), while longhaul (same job, different routes) earn on average more than $30k more than us. And as for hotel meals, you fail to remember that we may get to our hotels in the early hours of the morning so we have no choice but to eat from the hotel's menu.
If you don't like your employer, your conditions or your pay.... your probably in the wrong job, you are not chained to them. These union idiots are not going to make your job into something its not.
Given Andrew Little is a devoted Labour fan, the credibility of EMPU must be in doubt as he will push Labour's viewpoint to the detriment of business...he will always be anti-government (other than Labour) and anti-business
As usual the Union viewpoint is always to screw the Employers even in an economic downturn. I would be happy with a 4.5% increase. The strike action is designed to hurt Air NZ but in the end will hit the consumers and travellers. Support for the greedy union and air nz staff...yeah right!
Do not blame the Union or the Flight Attendants - Balme AIR NZ. It appears that they operate Pacific, Tasman, and Domestic flights with different pay structures for the operating crew performing exactly the saame short haul tasks.
You mentioned Emirates, and I could mention other regional Airlines, that operate the same routes and still offer the same pay structure to all employees.
At the heart of this issue is Air NZ's covert attempts to make a large part of their work force redundant in favour of an unfair contract.
Air NZ are the bullies of regional Australasia Aviation doing everything they can to kill competition and rip off New Zealanders - whether they be their own staff or regional Kiwi travellors. They kill free enterprise - such as Kiwi Air; and bail out of local business - such as hamilton and Dunedin Airport; and all the time they have their hand out to the government. They are an embarrassment to NZ and the skys will be friendly again when they are forced to recognise their negative contribution to the aviation industry.
I fully endorse the crew in their actions, and hope they succeed where AIR NZ has beaten other Kiwis in the past.
Zeal 320 crew deserve alot more than what they currently get paid, they are not asking for alot more but just to be paid equally as the other air nz crew. Air nz doesnt seem to be too short of money after just announcing they are spending 2.5k on a new advertising campagin. What is more important? I think some of your comments are unfair and dont know the real facts. I stand by zeal 320 crew and hope it does cause alot of problems during their strike so that maybe Air nz finally wake up and see that zeal 320 bring most of the profit into the company!! GO ZEAL 320 CREW!
Would you trust your wife and children to an airline that treats it's flight attendants like this?
In response to those who argue that only Air NZ implement this pay structure I have a relation who is a FA for Qantas (based in Auckland)who is employed at a far less rate than direct Qantas employees, she knew this when she started and is happy enough not to whine about it, I would be interested to know how often Zeal FA's have to stay in hotels if they only fly short haul internationl and having flown extensively I am convinced they have a far easier job than long haul FA's and should be paid accordingly, Easter must be the pick of the year for strikes by NZ unions, wasnt Air Nelson striking last Easter? By the way, myself and my children are booked to fly Brisbane to Auckland on A320 on Thursday 9th. As a printer its no wonder I don't join this union.
They stay in a hotel approx 6-9 nights every 28 days to operate out of wlg,mel, syd etc. They work just as hard as long haul flights attendants- providing up to 250 passengers a hot meal and up to four drinks within short flights times....eg a syd flight can be as short as 2hr 30 mins (including ascent and descent) with 4 crew- they do this twice as day.
I am stunned/perplexed/irritated by the ireesponsible actions promoted by the ZEAL waiters/waitresses and the no hopers of the EPMU.
When the fairies applied for the positions at ZEAL they were presumably told waht their salaries were.
End of story. Stop snivelling.You accepted the job and the salary. If you don't like it get a real job.
Do these people get the same perks as Air NZ which we as tax payers would be paying the FBT of 64% on - where does this stop the average working person has not had a wage increase in the last 12 months but unfortunately we cannot strike as we would lose our jobs.
You f*cking ugly mole.
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