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.