Business award for Ports of Auckland Board Chair must be returned

This week on Thurs­day 3 Decem­ber, the chair of the Board for Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed, Liz Coutts, was pre­sent­ed with an Deloitte Top 200 award for Chair­per­son of the Year in recog­ni­tion of busi­ness excel­lence and lead­er­ship. 

The fol­low­ing day, Fri­day 4 Decem­ber, her com­pa­ny Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed was sen­tenced for their role in the death of a young employ­ee in 2018 and fined over half a mil­lion dol­lars.

On 27 August 2018, 23-year old Laboom Dyer died at the Ports of Auck­land after the Strad­dle Car­ri­er he was oper­at­ing tipped over dur­ing night shift.

Ear­li­er this year, POAL admit­ted being guilty of fail­ing to com­ply with a duty that expos­es an indi­vid­ual to risk of death or seri­ous injury or seri­ous ill­ness under the Health and Safe­ty at Work Act.

At a sen­tenc­ing on 4 Decem­ber at the Auck­land Dis­trict Court, Judge Evan­ge­los Thomas fined POAL $540,000 and award­ed $130,000 in repa­ra­tions to Mr Dyer’s fam­i­ly.

Judge Thomas said the Work­safe inves­ti­ga­tion found Ports of Auck­land had failed to train its staff, and in mon­i­tor­ing and enforc­ing safe­ty plans, and not­ed ‘there was a sys­temic fail­ure to install and main­tain a cul­ture of safe­ty and com­pli­ance.’

Anoth­er work­er lost their life in Ports of Auck­land on 30 August this year.

Father of sev­en Palaamo Kalati, aged 31, died in the inci­dent on a ship at the Fer­gus­son Con­tain­er Ter­mi­nal.

That death result­ed in the May­or of Auck­land Phil Goff announc­ing an inquiry into health and safe­ty at the port due to his con­cern about the safe­ty record of the coun­cil-owned com­pa­ny.

Two of New Zealand’s lead­ing unions, rep­re­sent­ing thou­sands of trans­port work­ers, say the award to POAL Board Chair­per­son Ms Coutts must be returned.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says it is incom­pre­hen­si­ble in the cir­cum­stances that such an award should be giv­en, or accept­ed.

Mr Har­ri­son says two fam­i­lies will be hav­ing Christ­mas with­out a father, part­ner or fam­i­ly mem­ber this year.

“This award is an insult to them and it shows the real atti­tude of some employ­ers towards work­ers in our coun­try.”

Rail and Mar­itime Trans­port Union Wayne But­son says the mes­sage giv­en by the Award is a shock­ing one.

“Those at the top of busi­ness­es where work­ers die or are harmed should not be get­ting prizes at the same time they are being sen­tenced for expos­ing those work­ers to harm.”

Both Unions are call­ing for stronger enforce­ment of health and safe­ty laws, includ­ing the pros­e­cu­tion of indi­vid­ual man­agers and Board chairs who fail in their duty of care towards their work­ers.