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.