Talks fail to solve pilots’ dispute

Press, 17 January 1986, Page 4

Talks fail to solve pilots’ dispute

PA Auckland Air New Zealand pilots yesterday called off a planned stop-work meeting later this month, but immediately arranged another. The pilots now want to discuss what they call the “confrontational industrial attitude” of the airline. The Airline Pilots’ Association earlier abandoned plans to hold a stopwork meeting to discuss industrial action over a dispute concerning the crew of a DCB freighter aircraft.

The pilots want to crew the DCB which Air New Zealand leases with a crew supplied from overseas airlines. Talks between the

association and the airline yesterday failed to resolve the issue.

Both parties agreed to have the matter referred to the Aircrew Industrial Tribunal for a decision — a step barring the pilots from pursuing industrial action over the matter.

They withdrew notice of the stopwork meeting. However, the chairman of the Air New Zealand pilots’ council of the association, Captain Jerry Rees-Webbe, said the notice was resubmitted over “the confrontational industrial attitude” of the company. The meeting came from about two years of “total

industrial frustration” over many issues, he said.

“The attitude is one of the airline driving all its unions to the limits of their awards.”

Captain Rees-Webbe said that no date had been fixed for the meeting, but it would probably be in the first week of February. A spokesman for Air New Zealand, asked to comment on the remarks of Captain Rees-Webbe, said: “I am afraid he would have to tell us what he means before we would comment but I am quite sure there has been nothing that could be called confrontational. “It is quite the reverse.”