CEO’s approach blocking solution in Ports of Auckland dispute

The approach of the Ports of Auck­land CEO Tony Gib­son to the cur­rent indus­tri­al dis­pute is block­ing any hopes of an ear­ly res­o­lu­tion.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe says the Union believed progress had been made on the cen­tral issues, but an “atti­tude prob­lem” by man­age­ment was get­ting in the way.

Mr Parsloe says the cred­i­bil­i­ty of Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment is in tat­ters after CEO Tony Gib­son assert­ed last week that the cur­rent indus­tri­al dis­pute had caused a Maer­sk ship­ping ser­vice being pulled from Ports of Auck­land.

“A basic exam­i­na­tion of the facts has shown this claim to be non­sense, as the New Zealand media have report­ed and com­ment­ed on in some detail.”

Mr Parsloe says due to the inac­cu­rate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of this sit­u­a­tion by Ports of Auck­land, ques­tions are now being asked about the wider agen­da and judge­ment of Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment.

“Then Mr Gib­son keeps on going on about how much the stop­page is cost­ing. But he was the one who ordered a two day lock­out timed to cause max­i­mum dis­rup­tion to his own port. You have to won­der where he is com­ing from with this kind of stuff.”

Mr Parsloe says the union was focussed on medi­a­tion, but the CEO seemed to be expend­ing all his ener­gies try­ing to jus­ti­fy him­self in the media by attack­ing his work­force.

He says the port com­pa­ny was insist­ing on con­stant­ly con­tact­ing mem­bers with error filled infor­ma­tion.

“The CEO is legal­ly allowed to con­tact our mem­bers. How­ev­er the prac­ti­cal effect has been to aggra­vate our mem­bers who are clear they want to nego­ti­ate with man­age­ment through their elect­ed advo­cates in the Union.”

He says that Mr Gib­son had to accept that the sit­u­a­tion required nego­ti­a­tion, and nego­ti­a­tion required a rela­tion­ship.

“If you keep on blow­ing things out of the water then it’s hard to talk. We’re not sure if it is a CEO ego issue or some wider anti-union ide­ol­o­gy that is the prob­lem.”

Mr Parsloe says giant steps were made at medi­a­tion on Fri­day.

“How­ev­er, we came up against a brick wall when we asked he respect our mem­bers wish­es that he nego­ti­ate with their elect­ed advo­cates, rather than both­er­ing them at home with con­stant mis­in­for­ma­tion.”

“We have to ask why such a sim­ple con­cept is not get­ting through. It is sim­ply about respect­ing work­ers wish­es. What is the hard part here?”

The sole result of the man­age­men­t’s approach has been to dri­ve the par­ties fur­ther apart.

“We’re not sure who exact­ly Mr Gib­son thinks this is ben­e­fit­ing.”

Mr Parsloe says Ports of Auck­land CEO Tony Gib­son needs to start lis­ten­ing to what his work­force is telling him, and if he did so, progress would be made.

Ports of Auck­land work­ers were pick­et­ing the port this morn­ing and rais­ing aware­ness of what the real issues at the port were, and had been joined by MPs, oth­er unions, com­mu­ni­ty rep­re­sen­ta­tives and mem­bers of the pub­lic.

He says work­ers would be meet­ing at 10am to dis­cuss the way for­ward.