Air NZ stands firm over strike threat

Air New Zealand says it will not bow to staff threatening strike action over the Easter period because of failed pay negotiations.

But the airline wants common sense to prevail and a return to the negotiation table.

The Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), which represents Zeal 320 staff, wants pay parity for its members - some of whom it says cannot afford to buy meals while on overseas trips.

EPMU national aviation organiser Strachan Crang said its Zeal members were unhappy their base rate and allowances were lower despite staff performing the same tasks and flying the same routes as their Air New Zealand colleagues.

He said that when shift and overtime allowances were factored in, Zeal staff received around $30,000 a year less in take-home pay.

"This is serious, 97 per cent of our members cannot afford to live on the wages they are paid and nearly half go without food when travelling overseas because they can't afford to eat."

Affected union members are planning low-level industrial action for Saturday by not wearing uniform and refusing to do paperwork.

From next Wednesday workers will refuse to work standby, and the following Wednesday, April 8, they plan full strike action. Mr Crang dismissed claims EPMU was being greedy as "another attack on the workforce" after it rejected a recent pay increase offer of 4.5 per cent.

"This is the workers bargaining ... they [Air New Zealand] tried to sue them three times over the past six months - now they're calling them greedy."

But Air New Zealand group general manager short-haul airlines Bruce Parton said the threatened strike action was a cynical ploy.

Any action would mark a sharp deterioration in relationships between the EPMU and the airline, which have had regular top-level talks over the past few years.

Mr Parton said the airline's focus had been to ensure contingency plans for the days of planned industrial action and flights would operate normally.

"In the meantime, we have requested continuation of the mediation," he said.

"We didn't walk out of it issuing a strike notice, we have just asked them to come back in and get it sorted out."

Mr Parton said Air NZ revised its offer down to 3.8 per cent and this was an "extremely reasonable one" given the economic climate.

The offer, he said, would have given a new entrant Zeal flight attendant $41,000 a year for a 30-hour week and a nine-day fortnight.

He said EPMU was seeking base salary increases of up to 26 per cent and allowance increases up to 70 per cent.

"To suggest that $41,000 for a 30-hour week is a poverty wage is an extraordinary claim to make," said Mr Parton. It was mischievous to suggest Zeal staff could not afford to buy meals while overseas.

Meanwhile, House of Travel sales director Brent Thomas said there had been no panic from customers wanting to change flight bookings over Easter - one of the industry's significant travel periods after Christmas and New Year.

But he was worried "things could become difficult" if the proposed strike action were to go ahead.