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A cashless Christmas for foreign fishing crews far from home

A sec­ond group of Ukrain­ian crew mem­bers aboard the arrest­ed ves­sel Alek­san­dr Kseno­fontov in Dunedin are at log­ger­heads with employ­ers and have approached the Mar­itime Union seek­ing help.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the sit­u­a­tion with the fish­ing ves­sel is a clas­sic exam­ple of the prob­lems still com­ing to the sur­face in the fish­ing indus­try.

Mr Han­son says around 14 senior crew mem­bers, believed to be offi­cers, have approached the Dunedin police and the Mar­itime Union claim­ing their con­tract has been bro­ken.

Industrial action on cards if job losses from Stadium

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says the Port of Auck­land is too impor­tant to be dis­rupt­ed by the pro­posed water­front sta­di­um.

Mar­itime Union Local 13 Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says job loss­es are a major con­cern if the sta­di­um inter­feres with the run­ning of Ports of Auck­land, and the Union would con­sid­er indus­tri­al action to pro­tect work­ers liveli­hoods.

“The Ports of Auck­land are ask­ing for guar­an­tees that they will not suf­fer any finan­cial loss from the sta­di­um project, and like­wise the Mar­itime Union will be seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for our mem­bers for any loss of work.”

Last Kiwi crew on trans-Tasman vessel stage shipboard protest

Mem­bers of the Mar­itime Union are stag­ing a protest today on board a ves­sel at the Ports of Auck­land.

Mar­itime Union Auck­land Sea­far­ers Branch Sec­re­tary Gar­ry Parsloe says the crew mem­bers start­ed their protest on the trans-Tas­man freighter Rotoiti at the Ports of Auck­land Bledis­loe Ter­mi­nal at 7am this morn­ing Sat­ur­day 4 Novem­ber 2006.

He says the crew are draw­ing atten­tion to the fact that when the Rotoiti is with­drawn from ser­vice on 26 Novem­ber, it will be the end of the last New Zealand crewed ship work­ing on the trans-Tas­man trade.

Port merger must be driven by public interest, not commercial interests

The Mar­itime Union says that co-oper­a­tion between ports and regions is vital to the future of the mar­itime indus­try and New Zealand.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the pro­posed merg­er of Ports of Auck­land and Port of Tau­ran­ga needs to be man­aged as part of a nation­al ports strat­e­gy dri­ven by region­al co-oper­a­tion.

He says that the recent coastal ship­ping report by the Ship­ping Fed­er­a­tion and the announce­ment of a Gov­ern­ment review into casu­al­iza­tion of employ­ment showed that good work was being done on the prob­lems faced by the mar­itime indus­try.

International maritime unions gather in Wellington

Mar­itime unions from around the Pacif­ic are rep­re­sent­ed in Welling­ton this week for the sec­ond three-year­ly con­fer­ence of the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand.
The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has wel­comed del­e­ga­tions from the All Japan Dock­ers Union, the Inter­na­tion­al Long­shore and Ware­house Union (ILWU) from the west coast of North Amer­i­ca, and the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia, who have made pre­sen­ta­tions at the con­fer­ence on indus­tri­al and polit­i­cal issues.
Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says sev­er­al key themes have emerged from the Con­fer­ence.

Maritime Union says minimum wage free trade deal will meet industrial resistance

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Union will resist any attempt to under­mine wages and con­di­tions through short term casu­al work­ers import­ed under free trade deals.

He says that com­ments by Trade Min­is­ter Phil Goff on the Chi­na free trade deal are dis­turb­ing for work­ers and not in line with the Labour Gov­ern­men­t’s com­mit­ment to a high skill, high wage econ­o­my.

There will be no incen­tive for train­ing or pay­ing for skills if busi­ness­es are able to step out­side the nation­al labour mar­ket and pull in trained staff on the min­i­mum wage, says Mr Han­son.

Maritime Union congratulates Government action on overseas fishing crews

The Mar­itime Union says the new rules to improve wages and con­di­tions for over­seas fish­ing crews announced today are good news for work­ers.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the announce­ment means the indus­try will be brought into line with the rest of New Zealand busi­ness.

“Despite a co-ordi­nat­ed cam­paign by spe­cial inter­ests in the indus­try, the Gov­ern­ment has made the right deci­sion and the prin­ci­pled deci­sion.”

Free trade deal biggest threat to workers since Employment Contracts Act

The Mar­itime Union says the free trade deal with Chi­na is the biggest threat to work­ers in New Zealand since the intro­duc­tion of the Employ­ment Con­tracts Act in 1991.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the impor­ta­tion of short-term, casu­al­ized skilled labour being paid the min­i­mum wage will be a dis­as­ter.

“This is obvi­ous­ly going to have a major and neg­a­tive effect on wages and con­di­tions in New Zealand.”

Fishing bosses out of touch on wages and conditions

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says com­ments by cor­po­rate heads of New Zealand’s fish­ing indus­try shows their out­look is out­dat­ed.

He says some fish­ing boss­es are try­ing to under­mine a Gov­ern­ment plan to ensure mar­ket rates were paid to all fish­er­men in New Zealand waters.

Mr Han­son says the moves by the Gov­ern­ment are the result of a long process of inves­ti­ga­tion, and need­ed to hap­pen to bring New Zealand into line with Inter­na­tion­al Labour Orga­ni­za­tion (ILO) stan­dards.

Maritime Union steps up support of locked out Progressive workers

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has boost­ed its sup­port of locked out dis­tri­b­u­tion work­ers at Pro­gres­sive Enter­pris­es with union mem­bers to con­tribute one hours wages per week until the dis­pute is set­tled.

Mar­itime Union Act­ing Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ter­ry Ryan says the res­o­lu­tion was passed unan­i­mous­ly on a nation­al con­fer­ence call of all ports today.

“The Mar­itime Union is 100% com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the locked out work­ers at Pro­gres­sive using all finan­cial, indus­tri­al and polit­i­cal meth­ods open to us.”