Air NZ engineers fight for jobs

An Air NZ engineer outside the company's Auckland head office today. Jeff Brass / Getty Images

Air New Zealand engineers have proposed cuts in pay and conditions which they say will halve the number of threatened redundancies.

A total of 617 engineers face losing their jobs after the airline announced in October that it would contract heavy maintenance on long-haul aircraft to overseas companies.

The move is aimed at saving $100 million over five years.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and the Aviation and Marine Engineers' Association (AMEA) today presented a counter-proposal they said would rescue about 300 of the jobs.

They said their proposal -- prepared by consultants Michael Stiassny and Brendon Gibson of corporate advisers Ferrier Hodgson -- could save the airline $12 million a year and still keep much of the work in New Zealand.

Mr Stiassny said there was "amazing surprise" at how far union delegates and members had been willing to move on labour reform.

He confirmed that the average take home pay of workers covered by proposal would be less than it was last year or this year.

Mr Stiassny said half of Air NZ's figure of $100 million related to wide-bodied maintenance and the other half to the engine shop.

In relation to wide-bodied maintenance, the cost of the unions' proposal was only $10 million more over the next five years, than what Air NZ planned.

"In the engine shop, we have not been that successful, the gap is larger," he said.

"But what we have achieved, again with the support of the unions, is to come up with a structure where the company and the workers will work through a number of processes and alternatives which may narrow the gap even further."

Mr Stiassny said that, if Air NZ moved the maintenance overseas, it faced "the risk of being dumped or manoeuvred by the larger airlines" demanding access to engineering work.

There were also safety questions having servicing done offshore, whereas the work of Air NZ's engineers had been shown to be of high quality, he said.

AMEA national secretary George Ryde said the changes that the engineers were prepared to make to wages and conditions were significant.

They included flexibility in shift patterns to meet operational and seasonal demand, and moving to salaries instead of wages.

Mr Ryde said more than 90 per cent of members had agreed to the changes.

The unions were due to brief Air NZ management on their proposal this afternoon.

About 40 supporters gathered today outside Air NZ's headquarters in downtown Auckland as Mr Ryde and EPMU national secretary Andrew Little arrived to present the report to management.

However, no management representatives were present, with the airline saying that the afternoon briefing had already been scheduled.

After a Maori challenge (wero) was performed, the report was handed over to a representative of the airline's employees.

Mr Little said the challenge was for an iconic New Zealand company to work with its workforce to get the best possible outcome.

Meanwhile, the parties are due to go into mediation next week over the unions' legal action to slow down Air NZ's decision-making process to allow more time for consultation.

- NZPA