KEY POINTS:
Last-ditch talks aimed at preventing 1700 Air New Zealand ground service workers being made redundant broke down yesterday.
The airline and the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) held a second day of negotiations aimed at keeping the passenger and baggage handling check-in services in-house rather than outsourcing them to the Spanish company Swissport.
But Air NZ chief executive Rob Fyfe said the talks broke down after the union was unable to agree to a plan put to it by Air New Zealand that it could take to its members to vote on.
An Employment Court hearing is now expected.
"We are bitterly disappointed that, after having supplied the union with a blueprint for success, its delegates were still not prepared to take a proposal back to their members that would keep the 1700 jobs in-house."
Mr Fyfe said the union's legal action was causing the airline's staff unnecessary pain. "The EPMU in its own communication to its members has acknowledged that, even if a court case succeeds, the only result is a further delay.
"And since we now know that we cannot reach agreement, any further delay simply postpones an inevitable outsourcing decision.
"The reality is that this legal action is pointless," Mr Fyfe said, "because the Service and Food Workers Union, which also represents Airport Services workers, is not prepared to accept the need for any material changes to avoid outsourcing."
EPMU national secretary Andrew Little said agreement could not be reached because Air NZ had provided insufficient detail about how the plan would affect individual workers.
"They wanted a vote on a concept of how to move ahead, but we can't ask staff to vote on something when they don't know how it's going to affect them," Mr Little said.
"They are entitled to know how it will affect their pay, and those worse off are entitled to know if they are able to take redundancy."
Mr Little said the two parties would hold a preliminary judicial conference today and an Employment Court hearing could begin any time between Thursday and Monday.
- NZPA
