Alliance Party media release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday 31 March 2009

Air New Zealand contracting out tactics contemptuous

The Alliance Party has condemned the “scabrous behaviour” of Air New Zealand in its latest dispute with its staff.

Alliance Party President and industrial relations spokesperson Paul Piesse says that to employ strikebreakers to rat on workers exercising their right to use the only real pressure they have on an employer, shows the company’s contemptuous attitude.

"Air New Zealand has had to be bailed out by Government money – our money – yet the National Government and the previous Labour Government have both refused to take any responsibility for the behaviour of the appointed custodians of its investment."

Mr Piesse says this is another example of how employers, including in the public sector, use the sleight-of-hand of subsidiary companies and contracting out of services to attack workers pay and conditions.

He says working people should not have to pay the price for the failure of the employers’ free market capitalist system.

"That includes employers who take public money but behave like private sector autocrats."

The Alliance Party has previously criticized Air New Zealand for its attempts to outsource work and attack wages and conditions of workers.

ENDS

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