Maritime Union helps Burmese crew on Annapurna

The Mar­itime Union says it is help­ing the Burmese crew from the seized ves­sel Anna­pur­na in the Ports of Auck­land.

The Liber­ian-flagged Anna­pur­na was seized yes­ter­day by cred­i­tors after it berthed in Auck­land, fol­low­ing the bank­rupt­cy of its own­ers East­wind.

Mar­itime Union Auck­land Sea­far­ers Branch Sec­re­tary Gar­ry Parsloe, who rep­re­sents the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion, says the pri­ma­ry con­cern of the Union is that crew mem­bers are paid their wages.

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.

European dockers victory shows global tide turning against “pirate capitalism”

The Mar­itime Union says a major Union vic­to­ry in Europe for job secu­ri­ty for port work­ers sig­nals a turn­ing of the tide in the glob­al mar­itime indus­try.

The Euro­pean Par­lia­ment vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly on 18 Jan­u­ary 2006 to throw out a plan to extend cor­po­rate con­trol over Euro­pean ports.

On 16 Jan­u­ary, 6000 dock­ers from 16 Euro­pean coun­tries mount­ed a strong protest against the plan in Stras­bourg, France, in defence of jobs, work­ing con­di­tions, health and safe­ty, and the qual­i­ty of port ser­vices.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says it is a major vic­to­ry that was gained by an active cam­paign by work­ers – and which has impli­ca­tions for the New Zealand indus­try.