Flying school’s employment relations go into tailspin

The new owners of a top flying school have shown a ‘‘blatant disregard’’ for employment law by proposing at short notice to put flight instructors on new contracts with radically reduced hours, a union says.

Ardmore Flying School (AFS) in Papakura, Auckland, which has been training pilots since 1961, was last year sold to Nicolai Moore and Fang Dai.

NZ Airline Pilots Association president (NZALPA) Andrew Ridling said that under its new management AFS, on December 24, told flight instructors of a proposal to vary working conditions, including a change from being permanent salaried employees to permanent hourly waged employees. On January 2, AFS changed its position and proposed to make flight instructors parttime employees paid hourly, he said. On January 10, it changed its proposal yet again, advising that instructors would be moved to part-time employment with minimum guaranteed hours only, Ridling said. Flight instructors had been working 40 hours a week, earning about $800. But under the proposal they would be paid about $320 a week, Ridling said. On Tuesday the company did a U-turn and sat down at the negotiating table with union representatives, the union said.

The upheaval had been stressful for staff and the union hoped to have a resolution by the end of the week, Ridling said.

Of the 16 instructors at Ardmore, nine were NZALPA members but the union did not have a collective agreement with the school. ‘‘Unfortunately, we are not exaggerating when we say that the NZALPA legal team has not witnessed such a blatant disregard for the Employment Relations Act and well-settled legal principles relating to consultation and restructuring, not to mention the welfare of employees.’’

The new owners had no links to the previous owners who were well respected in New Zealand aviation, Ridling said.

Instructors were told their contracts were finished, without their consent, they were now employed on an hourly wage scheme, with only part-timeminimum guaranteed hours and that if they did not sign the new contract immediately they would be given four weeks’ notice and be made redundant, Ridling said.

They were also told that if they did not sign the new contract immediately, the owners would liquidate the business.

Ridling said there were enough domestic students signed up to sustain the business in the short to medium term and the proposed restructure was unrelated to Covid-19.