KEY POINTS:
Air New Zealand and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) returned to the negotiating table today to see if redundancies among its ground service workers can be averted.
The two sides were due to appear at an Employment Court hearing today after the airline said it wanted to outsource its passenger and baggage handling check-in services to Spanish company Swissport.
However, the union said today the airline produced a possible compromise during the weekend which would be discussed around the negotiating table today.
EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said the court hearing would be adjourned until Wednesday.
"We have agreed to adjourn it for a couple of days to see if we can nut something out," he said today.
"I am always hopeful, my assessment is that I still think it's 50-50 at best but given what's at stake, 1800 jobs, the whole contracting out, the change of the relationship and all the rest of it...
"I said to our team we have a moral obligation to work our butts off to get the best possible outcome."
Mr Little would not discuss the proposals raised by the airline during the weekend but said they "were around stuff we have already talked about".
He said if there was an agreement it would take about a week to go back to members for it to be ratified or rejected.
The row began after the airline said it would contract out passenger and baggage handling jobs at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch to Swissport -- saving $20 million.
After initial talks broke down the union took the dispute to the Employment Court.
- NZPA
