ITF condemns ‘car crash’ decision by POAL managers

Glob­al union the ITF (Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion) today described POALs lock­out deci­sion as “unbe­liev­able, unlaw­ful and prac­ti­cal­ly sui­ci­dal”.

ITF pres­i­dent Pad­dy Crum­lin said: “It’s like watch­ing a car crash in slow motion. Do Richard Pear­son and Tony Gib­son have a death wish for this port? Just when a nego­ti­at­ed set­tle­ment was with­in reach they have tram­pled on those hopes and issued a lock out notice.”

He con­tin­ued: “The thugs in this dis­pute are in the board­room at POAL: sling­ing out work­ers, lock­ing out work­ers, try­ing to bring in strike­break­ers from out­side New Zealand to replace a will­ing and skilled work­force. Gib­son and Pear­son beg­gar belief. It’s like they want to turn this port into a dis­as­ter area.”

Crum­lin was speak­ing from the ITF’s Lon­don head­quar­ters, where the organisation’s Fair Prac­tices Com­mit­tee (FPC) – a high lev­el group made up of glob­al dock­er and sea­far­er union rep­re­sen­ta­tives – was plan­ning its response to this lat­est provo­ca­tion.

“We are today call­ing on our mem­bers to use all law­ful means to con­vince Auckland’s may­or and coun­cil to step in and replace those in the POAL board respon­si­ble for these actions with mem­bers who are will­ing to run this impor­tant asset prop­er­ly for the ben­e­fit of the city of Auck­land and its cit­i­zens.”

“We are also form­ing an inter­na­tion­al cri­sis mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the man­age­ment-engi­neered cri­sis in POAL and meet with the city’s may­or, as well as fur­ther inves­ti­gat­ing the use of labour sup­ply com­pa­nies to break strikes and dri­ve down con­di­tions in the ports indus­try in New Zealand and inter­na­tion­al­ly.”

Crum­lin con­clud­ed: “Today’s deci­sion by POAL’s chair­man and CEO to crush the hopes and chances of a solu­tion that was so close just yes­ter­day has shown that they are not fit to be run­ning this enter­prise. The port of Auck­land is com­mu­ni­ty owned. That com­mu­ni­ty has been sold out. Even those who have sup­port­ed the man­age­ment so far are now real­is­ing that they are defend­ing the inde­fen­si­ble.”