Great relief for Auckland wharfies and their families

Auck­land whar­fies are today relieved to hear that they can return to work to get the Port up and run­ning again for Auck­land.

Fol­low­ing fur­ther hear­ings before the Employ­ment Court this morn­ing, Ports of Auck­land has with­drawn its lock­out notice and stopped its plan to dis­miss its work­force and con­tract out the jobs.

“Ports work­ers are very pleased that their employ­ment nego­ti­ations are back on track,” said Mari­time Uni­on Nation­al Pres­id­ent Garry Parsloe.

“This comes as a great relief for our mem­bers and their fam­il­ies, who now no longer have the threat of an indef­in­ite lock­out hanging over them.”

“Our mem­bers knew they had a strong case.  Ports of Auckland’s decision today to lift the lock­out and get back around the table indic­ates a sig­ni­fic­ant change of approach, which is wel­come.”

Garry Parsloe said the whar­fies wanted to acknow­ledge the sup­port from their fam­il­ies at a stress­ful and dif­fi­cult time, and the sup­port from the wider pub­lic of Auck­land over recent weeks.

“The Ports are one of the most import­ant assets Auck­landers own.  Their Ports have always been pro­duct­ive and can be more so, and we are com­mit­ted to deliv­er­ing for the pub­lic an effect­ive and even more suc­cess­ful Ports of Auck­land.”

Garry Parsloe said the uni­on has always been will­ing to com­plete bar­gain­ing for a col­lect­ive agree­ment, and looked for­ward to get­ting talks back on as soon as pos­sible.

Com­ments by the Ports CEO Tony Gib­son today indic­at­ing a desire to bring back con­tract­ing out pro­pos­als at a later date, made just moments after a com­mit­ment to return to nego­ti­ate a col­lect­ive agree­ment, were inflam­mat­ory and not help­ful.

Mr Gibson’s com­ments are in con­flict with under­stand­ings reached earli­er today and are a mat­ter of grave con­cern, Garry Parsloe said.