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.”