Council moves to make Ports of Auckland a good employer welcomed

The Mar­itime Union has wel­comed moves by the own­ers of Ports of Auck­land to ensure it acts as a good employ­er.

The Auck­land City Coun­cil has direct­ed its invest­ment com­pa­ny Auck­land Coun­cil Invest­ments Lim­it­ed (ACIL) to endeav­our to ensure that Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed (POAL) com­ply with ACIL’s per­son­nel pol­i­cy and good employ­er pro­vi­sions, and work with the Coun­cil to agree the best pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tar­get for the Port.

On 30 April the Auck­land Council’s CCO Strat­e­gy and Review Com­mit­tee agreed that the fol­low­ing be referred to ACIL:

• “Requires ACIL to endeav­our to ensure that its per­son­nel pol­i­cy and good employ­er oblig­a­tions, includ­ing the def­i­n­i­tion of a good employ­er, are also com­plied with by its whol­ly owned com­pa­nies Auck­land Film Stu­dios and Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed,”

• “and That Coun­cil works with ACIL on the best pro­duc­tiv­i­ty tar­get for the Ports of Auck­land”.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe has wel­comed these moves.

“Both of these issues are vital in ensur­ing that the cur­rent dis­pute with POAL is set­tled.”

He says Auck­lan­ders will be pleased to see this ini­tia­tive by the Auck­land Coun­cil and hopes that they are agreed by both ACIL and POAL.

Mr Parsloe says the ACIL Board are meet­ing today 2 May and will be dis­cussing the feed­back of the Coun­cil.

“In the con­fi­den­tial part of the meet­ing they are dis­cussing the cur­rent dis­pute.  We hope that they will be encour­ag­ing  POAL to reach a fair set­tle­ment of the col­lec­tive agree­ment with­out con­tract­ing out when we go into facil­i­ta­tion next week. “

Mr Parsloe says the costs of the port dis­pute and the ongo­ing risks are huge.

“It is in the best inter­ests of both par­ties and the com­mu­ni­ty for a res­o­lu­tion to be reached. The Mar­itime Union will con­tin­ue work­ing pos­i­tive­ly to achieve this out­come.”