Air unions to meet as dispute drags on

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 4

Air unions to meet as dispute drags on

PA Auckland Representatives of unions with members employed by Air New Zealand will meet this morning to discuss the two-week-old dispute in the airline kitchen at Auckland Airport The Hotel Workers’ Union, whose members are at the centre of the pay dispute, asked the Auckland Trades Council to call the groups together. The council’s president Mr Bill Andersen, said yesterday that those at the meeting would be brought up to date with the dispute. The council, he said, had not been asked to handle the row.

Air New Zealand pilots are refusing to fly aircraft with bags of rubbish left aboard because of the caterers’, strike.

Pilots and cabin crews on Saturday complained that the rubbish was a health hazard to passengers and crews and was being left on aircraft for up to four days. The Air Line Pilots’ Association last week issued a directive that pilots be aware of the health dangers of accumulated rubbish and that adequate drinking water be aboard for passengers’ welfare. The association’s spokesman, Captain Jerry Rees-Webbe, said several flights had been delayed when their pilots refused to fly until the rubbish was removed.

Aircraft normally are cleaned by ground stewards, but they will not cross Hotel Workers’ Union picket lines to work. They have all been

stood down on full pay. Captain : Rees-Webbe said rubbish was being stacked In aircraft toilets until flights reached an overseas port where it could be dumped. A flight from Tonga had only one toilet useable because the other was full of rubbish bags. On another flight, he said, refreshments for 100 passengers were limited to drinking water and only one cup. “It is the captain’s responsibility to see the aircraft is safe and hygienic,’’ he said. “They have refused and are refusing to fly them in that state.”

An Air New Zealand spokesman, Mr Bob Wallace, said the on-board rubbish presented “no problems we can’t deal with."