Air NZ workers eye managers' rise

By CHRIS DANIELS

Heightened industrial tension at Air New Zealand may be the result of the airline ending a year-long pay freeze for its top brass.

Air New Zealand spokeswoman Rosie Paul said senior managers would be given a "modest wage adjustment", backdated to February 1.

It is the first pay rise for senior management since the airline was rescued from bankruptcy by a Government bailout in 2001, but the ante may now be raised in coming wage negotiations with workers.

Chief executive Ralph Norris said he would receive neither a pay rise nor bonus payment in the latest round of increases. He said managers were the only group who took pay cuts, some of up to 20 per cent, when Ansett went under in 2001.

Air New Zealand's managers can point to a healthy return to profit for the airline. The company announced a half-year profit of $94 million last month, up $469 million from the same period the year before.

Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union secretary Andrew Little said many Air New Zealand workers had been subject to a pay freeze of longer than 12 months.

Nobody begrudged a management pay rise to compensate for increased costs of living, said Little, but the airline should accept that similar pay rises would be asked for when collective contracts came up for negotiation.

Some of the airline's Australia-based staff went on strike last month, saying they were "cranky" over its refusal to give them a pay rise after a 4 1/2-year freeze.

Air New Zealand said it was not true the Australian workers had received no pay rise for more than four years.

All of Air New Zealand's non-management staff received up to $500 in bonus payments last year.