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Seafarers Scholarships available for 2010

Four Sea­far­ers Schol­ar­ships are avail­able for MUNZ sea­far­er mem­bers, and chil­dren or grand­chil­dren of New Zealand sea­far­ers, for study in 2010 at Uni­ver­si­ty or tech­ni­cal insti­tutes.

Details and appli­ca­tion infor­ma­tion for the schol­ar­ships is avail­able here.

Maritime Union elects new national officials in union elections

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has elect­ed two new nation­al offi­cials in their three-year­ly union elec­tions.

The new Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Union is Joe Fleet­wood of Welling­ton.

A new Assis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Union has also been elect­ed, Ray Fife, of Bluff.

The Nation­al Pres­i­dent of the Mar­itime Union, Phil Adams of Port Chalmers, was re-elect­ed unop­posed.

The Nation­al Vice Pres­i­dent of the Mar­itime Union, Gar­ry Parsloe of Auck­land, was also re-elect­ed unop­posed.

The elec­tions took place in a postal bal­lot of all finan­cial mem­bers of the Union which closed last Fri­day.

The new Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Union, Joe Fleet­wood, thanked mem­bers for their sup­port and thanked all mem­bers who took part in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process of the elec­tions.

Unions unite in Ports of Auckland labour blunder

The Ports of Auck­land has been put on notice from Unions that it will have to train its own work­force rather than fly in staff from oth­er ports.

The port com­pa­ny wants to trans­fer skilled labour from Welling­ton and Lyt­tel­ton to keep up with work after 12 weeks ago lay­ing off a sub­stan­tial num­ber of work­ers.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Vice Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe says the sit­u­a­tion is a result of the port com­pa­ny ignor­ing Union advice.

“They were told there were too many redun­dan­cies, and it would cre­ate a short­age of skilled work­ers. Now this has hap­pened.”

He says that the Mar­itime Union would only agree for Unionised work­ers being trans­ferred into Auck­land if there was a writ­ten com­mit­ment from the Ports of Auck­land to train a suf­fi­cient num­ber of its own work­force.

International maritime workers represented at Maritime Union 2009 Conference

Mar­itime work­ers from around the world have gath­ered in Welling­ton this week as the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand holds its third tri­en­ni­al con­fer­ence.

The three day con­fer­ence sets the agen­da for the next three years of the Union and runs through to Thurs­day 29 Octo­ber.

The con­fer­ence was opened this morn­ing by Leader of the Oppo­si­tion Phil Goff.

Redundancy plan at Port Chalmers will be resisted

Union mem­bers at Port Chalmers are vow­ing to resist redun­dan­cy threats. 35 jobs have been put at risk after man­age­ment announce­ments, despite Port Otago’s ongo­ing prof­itabil­i­ty.

A full report is online here at the Ota­go Dai­ly Times.

Maritime Union thanks Sue Bradford for her support for workers

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has thanked Green MP Sue Brad­ford, who announced her res­ig­na­tion from Par­lia­ment today, for her sup­port for work­ers and those with­out a voice in the polit­i­cal process.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says Sue Brad­ford was a friend of the Mar­itime Union and all work­ers.

“Sue was a prin­ci­ple dri­ven politi­cian dur­ing her time in Par­lia­ment who was ahead of her time and who pro­vid­ed a con­trast to many oth­er face­less rep­re­sen­ta­tives.”

Heavy trucking plan a “roadhog’s charter”

The Mar­itime Union is back­ing Green Par­ty calls for the Gov­ern­ment to recon­sid­er its push to put over­sized trucks on New Zealand roads.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Gov­ern­ment is obvi­ous­ly not con­cerned at the extra deaths and injuries that will occur as a result on New Zealand roads.

Timaru port meeting resounding success

Over 100 local peo­ple attend­ed a Timaru pub­lic meet­ing on the future of the port of Timaru on Thurs­day 17 Sep­tem­ber.

The meet­ing was called by the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand fol­low­ing a deci­sion last month by Fonter­ra to stop exports from the port of Timaru, which has result­ed in a mas­sive loss of work for the port.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the meet­ing was a suc­cess.

Timaru meeting to defend port gathers steam

Today’s Timaru Her­ald fea­tures the Timaru pub­lic meet­ing this Thurs­day 17 Sep­tem­ber as their lead sto­ry.

Read the full sto­ry here.

Public Meeting for Port of Timaru – Thursday 17 September 2009

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is host­ing a pub­lic meet­ing on the future of the Port of Timaru. The meet­ing will be held at “Rob­bies” (Hibern­ian Hotel), Lat­ter Street, Timaru on Thurs­day 17 Sep­tem­ber start­ing at 7.30pm sharp.

All con­cerned local peo­ple are invit­ed to the meet­ing, includ­ing port work­ers, unions, busi­ness, indus­try, farm­ers, and all those con­cerned with the future of the port.

For more infor­ma­tion see the Port of Timaru cam­paign web­site.