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.”