Join your union

Category: Blog

Maritime Union wants answers on Indonesian shipjumpers

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand and Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) are inves­ti­gat­ing a shipjump­ing inci­dent in Dunedin where nine Indone­sian sea­far­ers left the fish­ing trawler Mar­inui on Fri­day 10 March.

ITF New Zealand co-ordi­na­tor Kathy Whe­lan says the Union has been in touch with the Min­istry of Immi­gra­tion about the case, and ITF rep­re­sen­ta­tives will try to speak to the fish­er­men at Auck­land Air­port before they are sent home tomor­row.

She says she is extreme­ly con­cerned about the increas­ing num­bers of for­eign sea­far­ers leav­ing their ves­sels in New Zealand ports, in this case claim­ing they were sub­ject­ed to 24 hour shifts with no breaks, two hour sleep breaks, and phys­i­cal abuse.

Ports of Auckland must remain in public hands

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says that any pro­pos­al to pri­va­tize the Ports of Auck­land would cre­ate a “per­fect storm of oppo­si­tion.”

Mar­itime Union Local 13 Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says those push­ing the plan were peo­ple out of time.

“There is obvi­ous­ly a fac­tion out there who want to bring back port pri­va­ti­za­tion plans from the dead.”

Mr Carlisle says that the pri­va­ti­za­tion strat­e­gy with the Ports of Auck­land failed in the 1990s due to mass pub­lic oppo­si­tion and recent attempts to part-pri­va­tize the Ports of Lyt­tel­ton had also end­ed in fail­ure.

Roading the wrong focus for New Zealand infrastructure

New Zealand’s two lead­ing trans­port unions say that pour­ing pub­lic mon­ey only into road­ing and ignor­ing oth­er trans­port infra­struc­ture is a mis­take.

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand, rep­re­sent­ing sea­far­ers and water­front workers,and the Rail and Mar­itime Trans­port Union, rep­re­sent­ing rail and port work­ers, are con­cerned that eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus plans focus trans­port invest­ment exclu­sive­ly on road­ing.

The trans­port unions say that while the Gov­ern­ment is cor­rect in invest­ing in infra­struc­ture as a stim­u­lus for the econ­o­my, it’s sole focus on invest­ing in roads is wrong.

Maritime Union backs plans for minimum wage referendum

The Mar­itime Union is back­ing moves for a ref­er­en­dum on boost­ing the min­i­mum wage.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand spokesper­son Vic­tor Bil­lot says the Union has offered its sup­port for the pro­posed ref­er­en­dum put for­ward by the Unite Union.

Work stoppages considered over police spy scandal

The Mar­itime Union may call a nation­al work stop­page to hold stop­work meet­ings of its mem­bers to dis­cuss the police spy scan­dal.

The Mar­itime Union was one of a num­ber of Unions report­ed­ly named in emails about union actions sent by police informer Rob Gilchrist to his han­dler in the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tion Group.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Mar­itime Union is sup­port­ing calls for a high lev­el Com­mis­sion of Inquiry into the Police’s Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tion Group.

Maritime Union will fight attack on job security by 90 day fire at will bill

The Mar­itime Union says it will fight to pro­tect job secu­ri­ty as the back­lash grows against the Nation­al Gov­ern­men­t’s attempt to push through the “fire at will” bill before Christ­mas.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the attempt to rush through the 90 day “fire at will” bill through at a time of mount­ing unem­ploy­ment and job inse­cu­ri­ty is mad­ness.

Maritime Union members to meet during 24 hour strike at Ports of Auckland

The Mar­itime Union says it is com­mit­ted to a res­o­lu­tion in the Ports of Auck­land dis­pute, and mem­bers will be dis­cussing a way for­ward dur­ing a one day strike that starts tonight.

Around 300 work­ers in the Ports of Auck­land con­tain­er ter­mi­nal steve­dor­ing, road, rail, shut­tle and engi­neer­ing ser­vices areas will with­draw labour for a 24 hour peri­od start­ing at 10.59pm on Tues­day 2 Decem­ber.

Maritime Union confirms Ports of Auckland strike action

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has con­firmed strike action at the Ports of Auck­land for Tues­day 2 Decem­ber and Wednes­day 3 Decem­ber 2008.

Four­teen days notice of the strike action was giv­en to the Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment ear­ly this after­noon by Mar­itime Union Local 13, which rep­re­sents water­front and oth­er work­ers at the Port.

Casual workers must be offered support in recession

The Mar­itime Union says that pro­tec­tion for casu­al work­ers in the eco­nom­ic reces­sion is a major focus for 2009.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Union is inter­est­ed in meet­ing with the incom­ing Min­is­ter of Labour in the new Nation­al-led Gov­ern­ment to dis­cuss the plight of casu­al work­ers.