Concerns with health and safety approach at Lyttelton Port Company

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says it has con­cerns about the approach of the Lyt­tel­ton Port Com­pa­ny (LPC) to manda­to­ry fit­ness tests.

The con­cerns come after the sen­tenc­ing of LPC in July 2024, fol­low­ing the death of MUNZ mem­ber Don Grant while load­ing coal on the ETG Aquar­ius in April 2022.

LPC plead­ed guilty in Novem­ber 2023 to one charge under the Health and Safe­ty at Work Act 2015 brought by indus­try reg­u­la­tor Mar­itime NZ.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Sec­re­tary Carl Find­lay says work­ers have wel­comed the guilty plea and sen­tenc­ing, but have con­cerns about the cur­rent approach of LPC to lis­ten­ing to its work­ers.

Mr Find­lay says a lot has changed since the trag­ic death of Mr Grant, a friend and much loved col­league at Lyt­tel­ton.

“This is not only in work prac­tices involv­ing coal oper­a­tions, but in Man­age­ment and Gov­er­nance and the rela­tion­ships between LPC and Unions.”

Mr Find­lay says LPC has many new mem­bers on the Board and a new Chair Bar­ry Bragg.

LPC also have their third CEO in a short time in Gra­ham Sum­n­er, fol­low­ing the res­ig­na­tion of for­mer CEO Kirstie Gar­den­er and inter­im CEO Jim Quinn.

Mr Find­lay says LPC have now announced a new manda­to­ry fit­ness for work pro­gram for all employ­ees.

He says this has been pushed through with­out regard to work­ers con­cerns over their finan­cial pro­tec­tion and well­be­ing of any mem­bers who fail the assess­ment, with the ulti­mate result of peo­ple los­ing employ­ment if they don’t meet the stan­dard. 

“In short, MUNZ see this as a breach of good faith and LPC not hon­our­ing our Col­lec­tive Employ­ment Agree­ment.”

Mr Find­lay says the Union is agree­able to fit­ness for work health mon­i­tor­ing, but want LPC to nego­ti­ate in good faith.

He says LPC are impos­ing a fit­ness for work test and the con­sul­ta­tion process was not work­ing.

“MUNZ is very con­cerned how the death of a work­er has been used to imple­ment new poli­cies with­out bring­ing along work­ers and lis­ten­ing to their voic­es.” 

Mr Find­lay says work­force morale is sink­ing with a lack of com­mit­ment shown towards LPC by some Coun­cil lead­ers, and the ongo­ing churn of man­age­ment and Board mem­bers.

“For­mer LPC CEOs Roger Gray and Kirstie Gar­den­er took part in open engage­ment with the unions, and LPC con­tain­er ter­mi­nal was the 35th best per­form­ing ter­mi­nal out of the top 415 ter­mi­nals in the world.”

“Unfor­tu­nate­ly, with ongo­ing changes at the top and a less open approach by Man­age­ment,  LPC con­tain­er ter­mi­nal has now dropped to 385 in the list of the top 415 ter­mi­nals in the world.”

MUNZ and LPC are attend­ing medi­a­tion on 16 August on the issue of health mon­i­tor­ing.

“We are con­fi­dent we can find a way for­ward with not only LPC, but also CCHL who man­age LPC on behalf of Christchurch City Coun­cil.”

MUNZ is com­mit­ted to ensur­ing the safe­ty and well­be­ing of not only our mem­bers, but all work­ers in the port of Lyt­tel­ton, says Mr Find­lay.