Air New Zealand staff are dismayed and angered at the company’s announcement to cut a further $150 million from their wage bill.

On Friday, the company’s Chief Executive Officer, Greg Foran, made the announcement to employees, who are still reeling from the redundancies which have already taken place.

E tū Head of Aviation Savage says with initial labour cost reductions of around $370 million, cuts of a further $150 million will only increase the pain for the airline’s workers.

“Thousands of workers have only got several weeks of work left before being made redundant.

“The company is heavily focused on saving money and is in danger of being blinded to the importance of treating both employees and customers with respect,” Savage says.

Savage says the real danger now is that the company may look to use the threat of outsourcing work to downgrade the remaining jobs.

“We will meet with union members as soon as possible to find out in detail how they want to respond. They have lost trust in senior management because of the way they were treated in the first round.

“The company is facing a big challenge, but now is not the time to repeat their past mistakes. To rebuild better, we need to keep these vital workers in jobs.”

© Scoop Media