ANZES negotiations continue

Negotiations for the Air New Zealand engineering collective are heading into their third week next week as members push to increase their pay and conditions off the back of the airline’s increased business and profit.

The negotiations are being run jointly by the EPMU and the Aviation and Marine Engineers Association and are the first since the document was renegotiated under the threat of outsourcing in 2005/06.

EPMU national aviation organiser Strachan Crang says that Air New Zealand’s engineering division has been performing very well in the last couple of years and that a great deal of that gain is due to the efforts of the company’s workers.

“The airline has work booked for years in advance, has had to bring in around 70 overseas tradesmen into engineering and is at the point where the airline is releasing work to third parties in order to keep up.

“A lot of this success is due to the hard work of our members,” says Crang, “and they now want to be rewarded for it.

“It’s also in the airline’s interest to raise the pay and conditions in this division as they are struggling to attract the workers they need, especially after the restructuring which damaged their reputation as an employer of choice.”

The engineering collective covers almost 1000 Air New Zealand aircraft engineers.