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.