I have been hearing a lot of comments like ‘Zeal crew are being greedy, they’re not the same as long haul” and “the union are bad news, they have old school ideals and are trying to introduce old things like over time which is something people don’t do anymore, these young zeal crew would not know what over time is if it wasn’t for the union”
So I would like to get the record straight by saying we are not being greedy, we want equality, we don’t compare ourselves to Long Haul, we want similar pay to Domestic, the union have been saying Domestic get all sorts of extra’s that we at Zeal don’t get. One of these extras happens to be over time, long haul gets it as well. This is not something we are asking for! Like popular opinion states its old school, it’s a thing of the past! Please note how ever Domestic and Long Haul get over time something we do not, and we are not asking for it, we are asking for a liveable wage! A base salary equal to that of Domestic crew.
Secondly, they have got zeal crew to passenger up or down the country before a 2 sector flight over the Tasman and then to passenger back up or down the country somewhere, if it is under 14 hours; our management are saying it is acceptable! This is totally disgusting crew are barely able to move after they have done the 3rd flight let alone doing a fourth flight home or to a hotel, no other cabin crew at Air NZ would be able to do this it would be considered fatiguing and unsafe! An example would be passenger CHC-AKL then work AKL-SYD and SYD-AKL then passenger AKL-WLG for another days work then next day……this is totally outrageous!
Letters have been found onboard by crew from the duration of our strike saying “we are unable to do business class today due to industrial action by our crew we have not enough crew for a business class service, you will receive $60 for this inconvenience, and a lady spoke to a crew member today in business class saying her flight was cancelled she was moved onto a Qantas flight, and her service in business class, onboard her Air NZ flight by this zeal crew member was a lot better than Qantas! So much for Bruce saying that Air NZ has got us covered and they can cover us for as long as they like.
We still work hard, we still do our job to a very high level of service and dedication, just because we want equality doesn’t not mean we are letting ourselves slip when it comes to our work, if anything it means we work harder to prove we are worth it! I hope for all the people at Air NZ who covered us as volunteers realise now it is a lot harder mentally and physically than you may have perceived.
The support from people over the last few days has been incredible thank you xoxo Zeal Girl
