N.A.C. men want union

Press, 16 March 1978, Page 6

N.A.C. men want union

Salaried engineers employed by the National Airways Corporation want to form a trade union to protect their interests in the face of what they say is a take-over of N.A.Q. by Air New Zealand. There are about 200 salaried engineers with N.A.C. at Christchurch, Auckland, Wellington, Dunedin, and Invercargill. More than 130 of! the engineers met in Christ-1 church on Tuesday and' formed a committee to take steps to form the union.

The committee said that the proposed merger on April 1 was in fact a takeover of N.A.C. by Air New Zealand and the move to form a union was to protect the interests of the engineers, not at present members of a union. An indication of the wav the “take-over” was developing was the appointment of Air New Zealand men to top-salary positions in the ratio of 13 to two in their favour, said the secretary, Mr J. Mounce. The main fear of the N.A.C. salaried engineers is that they will be discriminated against in job selection and promotion after the merger takes effect. “No-one has done anything to dispel our fears,” said the committee’s chairman (Mr B. A. Geddes). “We believe we have the loyalty, expertise, and technical skills to match anyone anywere. What we want to see is selection on merit.” The committee has written to the Registrar of Industrial Unions asking for information about forming a union.