Airport strikers to meet today
Air New Zealand engineers at Christchurch Airport stopped work at midnight but the strike may be called off after a union meeting this morning. The secretary of the Canterbury branch of the Engineers’ Union (Mr R. J. Todd) said last evening that a proposal would be put to the workers when they met at 9 30 a m. This followed discussions during the week-end between the union, Air New Zealand, and the Government over the Inland Revenue Department’s plan to tax the travel allowance for engineers.
Air New Zealand has cancelled all flights through Christchurch Airport until II am. Seventeen domestic flights have been cancelled, but an Air New Zealand spokesman said that many passengers anticipated the strike and had already rebooked on later flights. Two international flights — one departing for Sydney at 11 a.m. and the other due to arrive at 4 20 p.m. — have also been cancelled. An AucklandChristchurch DCIO flight due to land at 9.30 a.m. has been put back to 1.15 p.m. Disruption to 20 other scheduled domestic flights and two international flights today will binge on the outcome of the meeting. The dispute affects 500 ground engineers and loaders, who are angry about the prospect of their travel allowance, ranging from between $5 and $25 a week, being taxed. The secretary of the Canterbury Trades Council (Mr L. G. Morel) said last evening that the tradeunion movement would watch the Inland Revenue Department closely. It should make an over-all policy on all travel allowances, including company cars, before picking on one group, he said. A tax would destroy the purpose of the allowance which the engineers had had for 20 years, he said. Mr Morel said travel allowances were not extensive in union awards and any further union action would depend on what the Inland Revenue Department examined next.
The department was acting like a ‘‘robber baron” and would destroy the cooperation it had built up with the public in the last few years, he said.
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Press, 2 April 1979, Page 1
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336Airport strikers to meet today Press, 2 April 1979, Page 1
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