Union pressures Air New Zealand workers to accept loss of jobs and conditions

The outsourcing plan had threatened 1,700 airport jobs at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. The proposal, announced last October, to contract the work to Spanish company Swissport was to save Air NZ $100 million over five years. The company reached an agreement with the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) after lengthy negotiations and court-ordered mediation, on the basis that the cost-cutting would be on a par with the potential savings achieved through outsourcing.

The deal lays the basis for imposing further cuts across the airline. Three hundred check-in staff, members of the Service and Food Workers Union (SFWU), at the country’s largest airport, Auckland International, are the next in line.

Presented with no alternative, nearly 78 percent of union members voted to accept the settlement. The airline hailed the decision as an opportunity to make its airport services division “globally competitive and world-class”. The agreement offers no permanent job guarantees and only defers the outsourcing plans for two years.

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http://wsws.org/articles/2007/may2007/nz-m02.shtml