THE PRESS FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1985. Airline and staff strike gold

Press, 12 July 1985, Page 10

THE PRESS FRIDAY, JULY 12, 1985. Airline and staff strike gold

Air New Zealand is playing a word game by insisting that the $7 million hand-out to its employees this week is not a bonus. The airline’s public relations manager, Mr Bob Wallace, describes it as a “special one-off payment” The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines “bonus” as a “gratuity to employees beyond their normal pay.” To call Air New Zealand’s generous gift anything else is nonsense. For senior pilots the bonus of a week’s ordinary earnings plus $5OO will represent a payment, before tax, of close to $2500. The average payment for the 7000 employees will be $lOOO. The airline’s coyness could stem from possible unease on the public’s reaction to a $7 million hand-out to employees who, in the public’s view, already receive handsome advantages by working for an airline. The critics should not, however, overlook that the record $133.6 million profit was achieved with only a 2 per cent increase in the number of employees. Productivity is now 80 per cent higher than it was in 1983. The company has gone to great lengths to emphasise that its “special one-off payment” is an expression of gratitude to staff members for their efforts over the last three years. The decision could, however, set a dangerous precedent for other State-owned companies, corporations, and departments. Their employees may now also expect a similar reward at the end of a year of high profitability. Post Office workers may be envious when they compare their department’s record profit of last year. By far the greatest beneficiary of the

A Chinese visits Moscow

The visit of a Chinese Vice-Premier, Yao Yilin, to Moscow is one of a series of cautious moves to improve relations between the Soviet Union and China. China has been the keener mover, but still holds that there are three barriers: the large numbers of Soviet troops along the Soviet-Chinese border, the Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and the Soviet support for the Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea. The Chinese recently softened some of their comments about the Vietnamese invasion of Kampuchea. The visit, which is the first of a high-ranking Chinese for many years, at the very least establishes that the barriers are not preventing all high-level dealings. The Chinese refusal to have American warships in its ports if they may be carrying nuclear weapons has been interpreted in some quarters as part of China’s attempt to be seen by the Soviet Union to be keeping its distance from the United States Yao Yilin was met by the Soviet First Deputy Premier, Mr Ivan Arkhipov, who visited China at the end of last year. The two then signed a trade agreement and pacts on economic and trade co-operation and scientific

airline’s good fortunes is the Government. In addition to reaping $B4 million in various taxes and airways dues, it will receive a dividend of $65 million, about half of the company’s net profit for the year. Such generosity on the one hand, and burden on the other, will not make it easy for the airline to justify fare increases in the months ahead. Domestic fares in particular were increased substantially this year, and airline passengers have long memories. Profit is also being made, and the bonus paid, while cabin attendants practice a kind of apartheid. They refuse to allow the airline to carry some New Zealanders overseas because of their sporting intentions. The company has cause to be pleased with the support it has received during the year, although most of its passengers were not New Zealanders. The airline carried an extra 102,766 people on its international flights — the capacity of about 245 fully-laden 747 jumbo jets. Domestic flights produced an even greater growth. A total of 2,602,793 people flew within New Zealand, 340,575 more than the previous year, or enough to fill 810 jumbos or 2814 of the smaller Boeing 7375. The over-all load factor improved by 2.3 per cent to 71 per cent. In other words, the aircraft were, on average, almost three-quarters full. That is good business. No wonder then, that the airline’s chief executive, Mr Norman Geary, refused to reveal how much the domestic division contributed to the total profit. Mr Geary has consistently maintained that there is no pot of gold at the end of a domestic airline’s rainbow. If that is so, there must be a mountain of it at the international terminal.

and technological co-operation. There was an interesting irony about Mr Arkhipov’s visit because he was one of the Soviet experts who helped China in the 1950 s before the split came and the Soviet Union withdrew all its help to China. While in China Mr Arkhipov visited one of the Special Economic Zones established by China. In these areas of China, which are in Zhuhai, Shenzhen, Xiamen, and Shantou, the Chinese allow joint ventures with foreign firms. Mr Arkhipov would have to do some hard ideological swallowing to see that these zones were compatible with the Soviet view of Marxism-Leninism. They would not have been among the lessons Mr Arkhipov gave to his former pupils. Whatever the defence posture, on economic grounds China presents something of a problem for the Soviet Union. It has been able to hold up China as a poor undeveloped country where things went wrong because it rejected Soviet leadership. If things begin to go right because of China’s trade with Japan and the West, then the Soviet Union will have to do some more rethinking and possibly some more hard swallowing.