Year: 2005

Maritime Union calls for fishing industry wage hike

The Mar­itime Union has wel­comed the announce­ment by Min­is­ter of Immi­gra­tion David Cun­liffe that the cur­rent sys­tem reg­u­lat­ing over­seas crews in the fish­ing indus­try will be over­hauled.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says offi­cial recog­ni­tion that crews are being under­paid and exploit­ed is an impor­tant first step.

Mr Han­son says he agrees with the Gov­ern­ment the seafood indus­try is impor­tant for New Zealand, but this does not trans­late into allow­ing employ­ers to do what­ev­er they want.

A grim Christmas for foreign fishing crews

The Mar­itime Union says the arrest of shipjumpers in Nel­son is not solv­ing the cause of the prob­lem.
Six Viet­namese shipjumpers were arrest­ed on Tues­day night in Nel­son.
Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says action is need­ed to ensure that crew mem­bers are being employed under decent con­di­tions.
“This Christ­mas, there will be over­seas crews work­ing in New Zealand waters in dan­ger­ous con­di­tions, for low pay, suf­fer­ing abuse and exploita­tion, while we turn a blind eye because it is mak­ing a fat prof­it for some­one.”

Time for lid to be lifted on fishing industry disgrace

The Mar­itime Union says the shipjump­ing of eight Indone­sians in Welling­ton from the fish­ing ves­sel ‘San Lib­er­a­tore’ was entire­ly pre­dictable as the ship had a his­to­ry of prob­lems.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Union had to inter­vene on two occa­sions this year when over­seas crew mem­bers on the ‘San Lib­er­a­tore’ were being made to do water­front work nor­mal­ly done by New Zealand work­ers.

“There have been Gov­ern­ment reports say­ing there is abuse going on aboard these fish­ing ves­sels in New Zealand waters – why don’t we put the spot­light on the com­pa­nies oper­at­ing these ves­sels, rather than the work­ers?”

Maritime Union pays respects to Rod Donald – a friend of the Union

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has paid its respects to Green Par­ty co-leader Rod Don­ald, who died in the week­end.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says he has offered the con­do­lences of mar­itime work­ers to Mr Don­ald’s fam­i­ly and his polit­i­cal fam­i­ly, the Green Par­ty.

Kiwi maritime workers offer international solidarity across the Tasman

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says it will sup­port the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia and the Aus­tralian union move­ment in their fight to pro­tect the rights of work­ers.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Aus­tralian fed­er­al Gov­ern­men­t’s plans to attack job stan­dards for work­ers was expe­ri­enced on the New Zealand side of the Tas­man Sea in the 1990s, with the Employ­ment Con­tracts Act (ECA) intro­duced by the Nation­al Gov­ern­ment in 1991.

Department fiddles while crew members jump ship

The Mar­itime Union says the Depart­ment of Labour’s stance on two Viet­namese fish­er­men who have jumped ship in Nel­son is unac­cept­able.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Depart­ment of Labour has stat­ed in the media it will not act until for­mal­ly noti­fied by the fish­ing ves­sel char­ter­ers that crew mem­bers are miss­ing.

“In this case, the two miss­ing crew mem­bers have obvi­ous­ly jumped ship from the Sky 75, like the ten Indone­sian crew mem­bers before them, and these two fish­er­men are prob­a­bly liv­ing rough.”

Free trade deals could mean overseas labour trafficking in ports

The Mar­itime Union says that free trade deals and recent GATS nego­ti­a­tions have the poten­tial to intro­duce cut­price over­seas labour into New Zealand ports.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the use of ship’s crews and import­ed labour on the water­front is becom­ing a major prob­lem around the world.

“Inter­na­tion­al mar­itime com­pa­nies are already mov­ing low-wage, short term and casu­al labour across bor­ders to work in ports around the world.”

Maritime Union calls for action on Cook Strait ferries

The Mar­itime Union says that it has had enough of cow­boy tac­tics on the Cook Strait after fur­ther rev­e­la­tions of anoth­er poten­tial fer­ry
ground­ing that was nar­row­ly avoid­ed.

The Union is con­cerned about reports the fer­ry ‘San­ta Regi­na’ was on auto pilot in the Tory Chan­nel on June 9 in breach of Mar­itime Safe­ty Author­i­ty rules.

Maritime Union backs Greenpeace protest action against bottom trawling

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is sup­port­ing the direct action by Green­peace activists on the Rain­bow War­rior against bot­tom trawl­ing fish­ing ves­sels in the Tas­man Sea.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says it has become obvi­ous that over­fish­ing and bad prac­tices such as bot­tom trawl­ing were wreck­ing the envi­ron­ment, and would also destroy the indus­try that depends on the envi­ron­ment.

Pink Panther Plan won’t solve ship jumping crews

The Mar­itime Union says a plan by the Depart­ment of Labour to track down ship jump­ing crews by employ­ing a pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tor is ques­tion­able at the least.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says that pri­vate inves­ti­ga­tors may be in favour of the plan as it will ensure an end­less income stream for them in the future, but it would not solve ship jump­ing.