Union out to save 300 Air NZ jobs

Consultant Michael Stiassny and EPMU national secretary Andrew Little have a rescue plan. Picture / Brett Phibbs

Air New Zealand could keep its heavy engineering work in New Zealand at an annual cost of only $2 million, says consultant Michael Stiassny.

Stiassny and his Ferrier Hodgson colleague, Brendon Gibson, were hired by unions to analyse airline claims that it had to send its heavy aircraft maintenance overseas in a bid to save $100 million over five years.

Stiassny yesterday presented a counter-plan to save about 300 engineers' jobs to airline bosses, who will spend the weekend analysing its contents before making a final decision by December 19.

Engineering workers, represented by the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union and the Aviation and Marine Engineers Association, have agreed to far-reaching changes in work conditions in the hope the matching cost savings will keep their jobs safe.

The proposal developed jointly by Ferrier Hodgson and the union was only $10 million more expensive than the company's ideas, spread out over five years.

"So on average, for an extra $2 million a year, we could have wide-bodied maintenance in New Zealand and at acceptable levels," said Stiassny.

The airline was planning to spend $10 million on restructuring costs in the first year alone. If adopted, the plan would mean the loss of about 300 jobs, not the planned 617.

"We cannot over-emphasise the amazing surprise as to how far the delegates and their members have moved on labour reform," said Stiassny, who is better known for working for corporates rather than trade unions. "It is a phenomenal thing to see this happen.

"Never underestimate what it must take and how unusual it is to see a union make those ... deliverables. What we should do is harness that, because it is unusual and it is worth taking by the scruff of the neck and making the best of it."

Association national secretary George Ryde outlined a new regime of more flexible shifts, new categories of workers and an ability to take time in lieu rather than overtime.

He said this would mean a drop in income for workers. A lot of overtime was being worked, which would be cut dramatically under the counter-proposal.

Air New Zealand group general manager of ventures Craig Sinclair said the counter-proposal would be studied closely over the next few days.

"The issue is not how dramatic or how significant the change is - the issue is: does that change give us the competitiveness we need to be able to go up against the big guys in Asia and Europe and win customers that we don't have now?"

Sinclair said lower labour rates would, in principle, make the airline more attractive for third-party work.

"We have to be able to win external work and part of that is about the inherent inefficiency of a single line maintenance facility," he said.

A single line operation meant clients had to fit in around the fleet's regular maintenance needs.

Union national secretary Andrew Little said: "The real challenge for Air New Zealand - a company that is so important to the lives of many New Zealanders and to the life of New Zealand - is to pick up the challenge of working with their workforce, a workforce that is so overwhelmingly behind the proposals we are making."