Sexual bias claim proved

Press, 19 December 1988, Page 1

Sexual bias claim proved

Special correspondent Auckland Seventeen Air New Zealand hostesses have won their case for equal rights after a bitter eight-year battle with the airline and their union over claims of sexual discrimination.

In a landmark decision the Equal Opportunities Tribunal has ruled that the women can take their claims for damages to the High Court. Total damages could cost Air New Zealand up to $1.5 million. The chairwoman of the tribunal for the case, Hannah Sargisson, declared that Air New Zealand had breached the Human Rights Commission Act in its employment of the women. She had harsh words for both the airline and the Airline Stewards’ and Hostesses’ Union in her 104-page report, which will be released today. Mrs Sargisson said Air New Zealand breached the act because it did not offer the hostesses concerned the same opportunities for promotion within its cabin crew seniority structure as were given male crew with similar qualifications. She ordered that the seniority list be redrawn immediately. That would give the airline its first four female chief pursers.

The women, including the airline’s longest-serving hostess, Shirley Neale, first approached the Human Rights Commission about their discrimination claims in 1980.

Their charges finally came before the Tribunal on November 30 last year. The commission argued before the tribunal on behalf of the women, that the career structure within Air New Zealand effectively denied them the promotion or opportunities for promotion, that had been offered their male colleagues with identical or similar years experience in cabin crew employment.

She was critical of Air New Zealand for not initially embracing the idea positively of rectifying the inequalities which existed among its staff. ' The hostesses’ seniority gradings were never adjusted after the Equal Opportunities Act of 1975.

Mrs Sargisson said initially the airline looked to the union to resolve the problems. “However industrially desirable it might have seemed to let the union resolve this matter or at least to obtain its agreement to any proposed solution the act did not countenance this kind of hands-off approach,” she said. “The responsibility in the end rested with the airline.”

Mrs Sargisson said the matter of apportioning blame for the situation would be up to the High Court to consider in connection with the assessment of damages. “That these women have had to wait so long for a remedy however, is a depressing illustration of how desperately slow the process of change can be,” she said.

“There should be few who would espouse the view that employers should be free to openly engage in discriminatory practices which . deny women equal opportunity. "Yet this case illustrates against a background of complex legal and factual issues a situation of serious inequality which existed over many years and continues to exist.”

Her most severe judgment was against the Airline Stewards’ and Hostesses’ Union. She said . she had little doubt that its sympathies were with the men and that the union was committed to a solution which would not disrupt the men’s career expectations.

She also said that copies which she had seen of the union’s magazine, “Frontliner,” were sexist and offensive in some of the material.

During the tribunal hearing the hostesses gave evidence of harassment, much of which was suppressed. Mrs Sargisson said the behaviour or incidences ranged from indifference to extreme harassment of a sexist and at times racist kind.