Auckland has its Port back but this never should have happened

Auck­land cit­i­zens, work­ers and busi­ness­es will wel­come news that their Port will be up and run­ning again soon, fol­low­ing Port management’s drop­ping of their plan to casu­alise its work­force, FIRST Union said today.

FIRST Union rep­re­sents work­ers in affect­ed indus­tries like retail, trans­port and logis­tics, and Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Robert Reid said work­ers and busi­ness­es in these indus­tries will wel­come news the Ports will be at full capac­i­ty before long.

“This dis­pute was already impact­ing on work­ers as incom­ing freight dried up and was divert­ed to oth­er Ports.”

“The blame for this lies square­ly with the stub­born­ness of Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment and gov­er­nance in their attempts to dis­miss then casu­alise their work­force, not work­ers defend­ing basic pro­tec­tions and secure work.”

Robert Reid said that despite the good news for Ports work­ers today, 1,000 meat work­ers are in their fifth week of being locked out, and work­ers need­ed to both offer their sup­port to the meat work­ers, and remain on guard against an increased employ­er appetite for hard-nosed employ­ment prac­tis­es.