Matt McCarten: Misinformation muddies waters around flight attendant dispute

I met Rob Fyfe, the chief executive of Air New Zealand, last Sunday. Despite what some of my political adversaries may think, I find senior managers of corporations to be seemingly decent individuals.

Anyone who gets to lead a public company or similar organisation tends to have worked their way up the career ladder, and been judged by their peers to have the personal attributes and professional skills to lead them.

The less-than-savoury corporate characters I have run up against seem to infest themselves further down the food chain.

So it puzzles me why Fyfe and his lieutenants have declared war on lower-paid cabin crew. The head of the union representing these workers, Andrew Little of the EPMU, is as smart and as decent as Fyfe.

So I can't understand why things have got to a point where Fyfe, as head of a New Zealand icon 75 per cent owned by the citizens of this country, feels he has to take on his workers head-on, resulting in four days of industrial action.

The spin doctors are muddying the waters and some of the misinformation from some of Air NZ's public relations people is pathetic. Some of these toadies are gloating about how successful they were in getting non-union staff to scab on their locked-out and striking employees.

These are the same people who, when the dispute is over, will produce glossy publications promoting love and respect for their staff and how they are all one, united family working for the common good. Yuck!

I'm always disappointed when some people sign up with their corporate lords to smash their workmates. What goes through the heads of these non-union staff when they take a union member's place?

If Fyfe gets his way the claims by his workers won't happen. But the worker betraying his or her workmates will also suffer from this loss. Satirist Jack London was right when he said there's nothing worse than someone who scabs on his mates.

Whenever a dispute reaches this stage it's because workers feel a sense of injustice. This case is no different.

Air NZ flight attendants are either on strike or have been locked out of their jobs because they are fighting for the principle of pay parity.

These workers are flight attendants employed on Air NZ flights wearing Air NZ uniforms. Even though they do the same job as other flight attendants, some are paid considerably less.

This situation came about because Air NZ set up a wholly owned subsidiary to run Freedom Air as a budget airline flying across the Tasman. When that initiative didn't work these workers were transferred directly into Air NZ. Some of the workers were moved on to the standard Air NZ employment terms and conditions.

But for some reason the flight attendants were not aligned and therefore receive about 30 per cent less in their pay packets than others.

Despite the company's misinformation campaign it's essentially a case of fairness.

Workers employed by the same company doing the same job should be treated equally.

Last week when I asked head honcho Fyfe about this he claimed these workers were unreasonable and demanding a 40 per cent wage increase in a recession.

Unfortunately, this is where even decent people say things they shouldn't. While it's true the flight attendants were initially asking for pay parity with other flight attendants, that claim was dropped some time ago.

All these workers are asking for now is for the pay gap to be closed. After all, they do the same training, have the same responsibilities, and carry out the same work as every other flight attendant. Fyfe slipped away before I could pull him up on this.

To date, Air NZ negotiators have not moved from their original position in that they will pay the same percentage rate as their other workers. This maintains the 30 per cent gap. Their much-heralded 8 per cent offer on allowances disguises the fact it equates to less than $10 a week. But it's not income anyway - it's to cover laundry and meals when they are away from home.

Fyfe and his fellows should drop this pretence. And before they say they can't afford it, they have announced they will make a $78 million profit.

Air NZ workers have made their airline what it is today. We, the taxpayers, have helped them out financially over the years when their management and board of directors have stuffed up. The company is part of our heritage and is owned by the citizenry of this country.

Their planes carry our name all over the world. So when did the custodians of our airline believe that ordinary Kiwis think it okay to ask two people to do the same job then discriminate against one of them?

I hope those of you who flew Air NZ in the past four days told those non-union cabin crew that they should be ashamed of themselves. The rest of you can phone Air NZ to ask the operator to pass on to Fyfe that his management's attitude is unacceptable. For everyone else flying from tomorrow, let the flight attendants know that ordinary Kiwis support their fight for fairness. That's the least we can do.