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Budget takes New Zealand transport down the wrong road

The Mar­itime Union says the bud­get announced today is a step back­ward for trans­port infra­struc­ture.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the lack of sup­port for the mar­itime indus­try is a glar­ing omis­sion.

Mr Han­son says the aban­don­ment of the SeaChange strat­e­gy to build up New Zealand ship­ping in favour of build­ing more roads is a bad mis­take.

“The Gov­ern­ment has poured mon­ey into road­ing as the world hits peak oil and cli­mate change. They are mov­ing in exact­ly the wrong direc­tion. Ship­ping is the trans­port mode of the future that is low-impact, envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble and cost effec­tive in the long term, but has been side­lined.”

Free trade dairy debacle with USA was inevitable

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says the col­lapse of free trade in dairy prod­ucts going into the Unit­ed States was pre­dictable and inevitable.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says New Zealand has been naive in allow­ing free trade ide­ol­o­gy to replace com­mon sense and had been “led by the nose” by a self-inter­est­ed sec­tor of busi­ness in New Zealand who put their own inter­ests first.

He says that nations such as the Unit­ed States would sup­port free trade as long as it served their inter­ests, then would aban­don it when it no longer suit­ed them, which is what had now hap­pened.

Removal of Ports of Auckland chairman is a positive move

The Mar­itime Union says the removal of Ports of Auck­land chair­man Gary Judd last week is for the best.

Mar­itime Union Local 13 Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says the removal of Ports of Auck­land chair­man Gary Judd by Auck­land Region­al Hold­ings could lead to a more pos­i­tive atmos­phere.

He says the Union has been con­cerned about the approach of Mr Judd and his lev­el of com­mit­ment to the Ports of Auck­land as a pub­lic asset owned by the peo­ple of Auck­land.

Work stoppage announced for Ports of Auckland

Work­ers at the Ports of Auck­land have issued a strike notice in order to hold a stop work meet­ing between 12 noon and 4.30pm on Fri­day 5 June 2009 to dis­cuss employ­ment issues.

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand announced the stop­page after medi­a­tion with port com­pa­ny man­age­ment about new work con­di­tions for union mem­bers to avoid redun­dan­cies took place on Thurs­day 21 May.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Local 13 Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says the stop­work meet­ing will bring togeth­er work­ers at the Port to dis­cuss ongo­ing nego­ti­a­tions around their expired col­lec­tive employ­ment agree­ment, which had been impact­ed by a man­age­ment plan to slash jobs.

Campaign website launched for Ports of Auckland workers

Check out the new cam­paign web­site for all Ports of Auck­land work­ers and sup­port­ers.

Maritime Union prepares to defend Auckland jobs

The Mar­itime Union says a plan to make Ports of Auck­land work­ers redun­dant will be met with a strong response.

A nation­al exec­u­tive meet­ing of the Mar­itime Union held in Welling­ton today endorsed nation­al action in sup­port of the work­ers whose jobs are threat­ened at Ports of Auck­land.

Rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the Auck­land work­ers addressed the nation­al meet­ing which unan­i­mous­ly endorsed indus­tri­al and legal strate­gies to fight job loss­es.

Maritime Union to fight Ports of Auckland redundancies

The Mar­itime Union says it will fight a deci­sion to sack work­ers at the Ports of Auck­land.

Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment today announced they are effec­tive­ly shut­ting down the per­ma­nent work­force at the Bledis­loe Ter­mi­nal at the Ports of Auck­land with the loss of 28 jobs.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Local 13 Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says the Union is look­ing at all the options to save jobs.

Striking cabin crew get support: NZPA

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand today voiced sup­port for strik­ing Air New Zealand cab­in crew.

The 240 crew employed by Air NZ sub­sidiary Zeal walked off the job today for four days after months of fruit­less nego­ti­a­tions over pay par­i­ty with staff employed direct­ly by the air­line.

Full sto­ry here.

Maritime workers back locked out flight attendants

The Mar­itime Union is back­ing locked out flight atten­dants employed by Air New Zealand sub­sidiary Zeal 320.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says water­front work­ers and sea­far­ers sup­port­ed protests by locked out work­ers in Auck­land and Welling­ton today.

“The Mar­itime Union will give full and active sup­port to our fel­low trans­port work­ers and their union the EPMU in this dis­pute.”

Maritime Union responds to job slashing exercise at Ports of Auckland

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says it does not accept the Ports of Auck­land pro­pos­al to slash 30 jobs.

Mar­itime Union Local 13 Auck­land Water­front Branch Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says the union met today with Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment to dis­cuss the pro­pos­al.

He says the Union is con­cerned with the lev­el of job loss­es and does not accept the rea­sons giv­en by man­age­ment.