Court finds union case ‘seriously arguable’

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and wel­comes the Employ­ment Courts writ­ten reas­ons, released today, for Tuesday’s grant­ing of an injunc­tion stop­ping the Ports of Auck­land con­tract­ing out.

The Court found there is a ‘ser­i­ously argu­able case’ that the Ports of Auck­land has breached the Employ­ment Rela­tions Act and Under­mined the Col­lect­ive Bar­gain­ing. It also found it likely oth­er aspects of the Act have been breached.

It was on this basis that the court issued the injunc­tion.

“This decision reit­er­ates the fact that the Port Board is not able to man­age the port in the man­ner required by law,” said Mari­time Uni­on Pres­id­ent Garry Parsloe.

“The crime here is the work­ers at the port have suffered five weeks without pay because their leg­al right to bar­gain was under­mined. The busi­nesses and people of Auck­land have suffered severe losses and the Coun­cil has lost money through both lost rev­en­ue and the huge costs the port com­pany has incurred attempt­ing to imple­ment these ill thought out plans.”

“It is time for this to stop now. We are ready to nego­ti­ate a col­lect­ive agree­ment. We want to return to work and we want this attack on our work­force to stop.”