Union tips airline merger job losses

By MATHEW DEARNALEY

Job-boosting promises from an Air New Zealand-Qantas partnership have been challenged by Australian unionists fearing mass layoffs in anticipation of war in Iraq.

The Australian Services Union, representing a third of the 30,000-strong Qantas workforce, is up in arms over claims across the Tasman that the airline has a contingency plan to sack 2500 workers if war breaks out.

This threatens to fuel Australian union resistance to a plan by Qantas to buy 22.5 per cent of Air New Zealand for A$500 million ($536 million), which comes with promises of 200 more engineering jobs on this side of the Tasman.

Qantas refuses to confirm the job-shedding claims before announcing its half-yearly profit today, but services union assistant secretary Linda White accused the airline yesterday of leaking the plan to boost its share price.

Neither will Air New Zealand disclose details of its own contingency planning, except to say it is concentrating on the safety and security of staff and passengers.

Unlike Qantas, which fears reductions in international bookings by 15 per cent to 20 per cent in the event of war, the New Zealand carrier flies nowhere near the Middle East.

Ms White told the Herald from Melbourne that the 1991 Gulf War caused no great job losses among her members, and Australian unions would strongly oppose any diversion of Qantas work to New Zealand.

"If they are planning to lay off Australian workers why should they bail out Air New Zealand?" she said of the Qantas buy-in plan, which is being considered by competition watchdogs in both countries.

"If what they are saying is they will make people redundant and contribute jobs to New Zealand, I don't think so."

Her comments have unsettled New Zealand unionists, who say their efforts to gain strong job guarantees from the would-be aviation partners are not aimed at stealing work from Australian comrades.

They are well aware of the depth of anger remaining across the Tasman about the loss of up to 16,000 jobs from the collapse in 2001 of Air New Zealand's former subsidiary, Ansett Australia.

Service and Food Workers' Union secretary and Council of Trade Unions vice-president Darien Fenton, who is in Melbourne for a world conference of women unionists, said last night she would arrange an urgent meeting with Ms White to shore up a united front.

"Unions should work together to save jobs in both countries - we should not allow any company to set one group of workers against another," she said.

The furore comes as the CTU and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union seek undertakings that workers here will not be laid off in a Qantas-Air New Zealand partnership, and that a promise of 200 more engineering jobs will be honoured.

Both organisations have in submissions to the Commerce Commission supported the partnership on condition that the commission requires Air New Zealand to guarantee job security.

No such support has come from the Australian Manufacturing Workers' Union, which has warned the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission that the mooted alliance will lead to a loss of maintenance jobs and skills, threatening air safety and defence capability.

That union fears the loss of up to 224 engineering jobs as Qantas sends more heavy maintenance work to New Zealand.

But the New Zealand engineers' union submission says the extra work it wants is only a larger share of the 20 per cent Qantas already sends to overseas contractors.

Union secretary Andrew Little said last night he believed Qantas might be using talk of war as a pretext to achieve efficiencies potentially available within its operation "which have nothing to do with New Zealand or the New Zealand workforce".

His union is asking the Commerce Commission to require Air New Zealand to supply a business plan based on promises by the company's chief executive, Ralph Norris, both of 200 extra engineering jobs and of investment of $100 million in new facilities.