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Where does Minister of Transport Steven Joyce stand in regional ports furore?

The Mar­itime Union is ask­ing where the Gov­ern­ment and the Min­is­ter of Trans­port stands on the future of region­al ports after Fonter­ra announced it was with­draw­ing from some region­al ports in favour of trans­port­ing goods by long dis­tance rail last month.

Jobs are under threat, casu­al­iza­tion is hit­ting work­ers hard, and the via­bil­i­ty of region­al ports is under a cloud after the deci­sion, which has cre­at­ed intense debate in the regions and the trans­port indus­try.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the union’s nation­al exec­u­tive met with a Fonter­ra rep­re­sen­ta­tive ear­li­er this week.

Answers needed on KiwiRail – Fonterra deal

Car­toon cour­tesy of the Ship­ping Gazette

The Mar­itime Union has stepped up its demand for answers as fall­out con­tin­ues from Fonter­ra’s dump­ing of region­al ports in favour of long dis­tance rail – and the influ­ence that state sub­si­dies to KiwiRail may have had on any deal.

KiwiRail has wad­ed into the grow­ing debate over the fate of region­al ports, as the impli­ca­tions of Fonter­ra’s with­draw­al from ports in New Ply­mouth and Timaru becomes appar­ent.

Government can put New Zealanders in containers, but it can’t give them jobs shipping them

The Mar­itime Union has a mes­sage for the Gov­ern­ment: instead of jail­ing New Zealan­ders in con­tain­ers, it would be bet­ter to have them work­ing on the con­tain­ers by rebuild­ing coastal ship­ping.

Cor­rec­tions Min­is­ter Judith Collins announced today a “con­tain­er unit” will be set up at Rimu­ta­ka Prison to house surg­ing num­bers of pris­on­ers, the lat­est embar­rass­ing step in New Zealand’s fail­ure to con­front the real issues behind crime.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says New Zealand work­ers have been forced out of mar­itime employ­ment in their own coun­try by allow­ing over­seas labour to be exploit­ed on the New Zealand coastal waters.

He says that due to the “open coast” pol­i­cy intro­duced by Nation­al in the 1990s New Zealand had seen its ship­ping indus­try tak­en apart, while many oth­er coun­tries reserved their domes­tic mer­chant ship­ping and fish­eries for local indus­try.

Fonterra milking New Zealand taxpayers

The Mar­itime Union has hit back at “social­ly irre­spon­si­ble” Fonter­ra pulling out of region­al ports and says the dairy giant’s prof­its are being sub­si­dized by the tax­pay­er.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says Fonter­ra has come out with “weak excus­es” for its deci­sion to pull out of some region­al ports in favour of trans­port­ing prod­ucts by long dis­tance rail.

Mr Han­son says the future of the New Zealand trans­port indus­try seems to be in the hands of one man, Fonter­ra Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of Sup­ply Chain Strat­e­gy Nigel Jones.

“Fonter­ra holds the fate of whole region­al economies in their hands because of their size and influ­ence, but seem to have no account­abil­i­ty to any­one but them­selves.”

Maritime Union joins rallies and digs deep in Telecom lines engineers dispute

The Mar­itime Union has upped its indus­tri­al and finan­cial sup­port of Tele­com lines engi­neers in their employ­ment dis­pute.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says a nation­al meet­ing of Union rep­re­sen­ta­tives from ports and ships this morn­ing vot­ed an ini­tial $10,000 to sup­port Tele­com lines engi­neers in their strug­gle for secure jobs.

Mar­itime Union mem­bers from New Zealand ships and the water­front joined ral­lies in Auck­land and Welling­ton this morn­ing along­side the lines engi­neers and oth­er sup­port­ers.

Maritime Union calling for international support for Telecom engineers

The Mar­itime Union has added its weight to the strug­gle of Tele­com lines engi­neers fight­ing to pro­tect their jobs.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says mar­itime work­ers will be sup­port­ing the Tele­com lines engi­neers, who are mem­bers of the EPMU, in their bat­tle against con­tract­ing out.

He says a spe­cial nation­al exec­u­tive meet­ing of the Mar­itime Union has been called for Mon­day, which will be fol­lowed by com­mu­ni­ca­tions with the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion based in Lon­don and its New Zealand union affil­i­ates, as well as Aus­tralian mar­itime unions.

Maritime Union highlights negative effects of Fonterra port pull out

The Mar­itime Union says region­al ports have been hit hard because of a deci­sion by Fonter­ra to rail goods to dis­tant ports.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the moves have already led to notices of major redun­dan­cies in the port of Timaru, greater casu­al­iza­tion of the work­force, and was threat­en­ing the via­bil­i­ty of some ports.

“This issue can­not be dealt with by ports con­tin­u­ing to com­pete each oth­er into the ground. It must be addressed by nation­al co-ordi­na­tion of our trans­port sys­tem, not the waste­ful, inse­cure and chaot­ic mess we have at the moment.”

Ports of Auckland under threat from secret SuperCity agenda

The Mar­itime Union says it is con­cerned about the inten­tions of the Gov­ern­ment towards Auck­land’s pub­lic assets under the pro­posed SuperCi­ty.

The union rep­re­sents sev­er­al hun­dred work­ers at the Ports of Auck­land, which pro­vides a major income to the peo­ple of Auck­land who own the port through the Auck­land Region­al Coun­cil.

Mar­itime Union Local 13 Sec­re­tary Rus­sell Mayn says there has been an ongo­ing “soft­en­ing up” cam­paign from big busi­ness inter­ests to sell off the Ports of Auck­land so they can get their hands on them.

He says there is seri­ous cause for con­cern that the SuperCi­ty plan for Auck­land’s local gov­ern­ment will be used to push for­ward pri­va­ti­za­tion of assets — includ­ing the port.

Fonterra and shipping companies held up to scrutiny

The Mar­itime Union’s com­ments on the effect on ports of deci­sions by Fonter­ra and ship­ping com­pa­nies have fea­tured wide­ly in the news.

TVNZ reports that “the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is call­ing for nation­al co-ordi­na­tion of port strat­e­gy, argu­ing that Fonter­ra is exert­ing such pow­er as a cus­tomer it is effec­tive­ly ratio­nal­is­ing the port indus­try.”

The Tarana­ki Dai­ly News writes that “Zealand’s water­front work­ers and sea­far­ers have sav­aged Fonter­ra’s deci­sion to drop Port Tarana­ki, warn­ing it has the poten­tial to ‘rip the guts out’ of the port” fol­low­ing a “a bomb­shell deci­sion last week, the dairy giant said it would be rail­ing Whareroa prod­uct to Auck­land and Tau­ran­ga instead.”

Regional ports at mercy of Fonterra and shipping companies

The Mar­itime Union says Fonter­ra’s deci­sion to stop ship­ping con­tainer­ized exports through Port Tarana­ki and Port Timaru was an exam­ple of how entire region­al economies with­in New Zealand were being dis­rupt­ed.

The recent announce­ment by Fonter­ra means the loss of 25,000 box­es of car­go to Port Tarana­ki in New Ply­mouth, and the loss of 24,000 box­es to Port Timaru annu­al­ly.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the “overnight deci­sions” by Fonter­ra and major ship­ping com­pa­nies are harm­ing region­al com­mu­ni­ties and region­al ports through a process of “destruc­tive com­pe­ti­tion” where ports expe­ri­enced major and unpre­dictable changes in ship­ments.