Lack of information on Port of Tauranga death extremely concerning

The Mar­itime Union says it is extreme­ly con­cerned about the lack of pub­lic infor­ma­tion about a Tau­ran­ga port work­er who died last week.

On 16 August a 59-year old work­er at the port suf­fered head injuries and was air­lift­ed to Waika­to Hos­pi­tal from Tau­ran­ga Hos­pi­tal.

The man died on 22 August accord­ing to media reports, and accord­ing to sources a tan­gi has been held, but the inci­dent only became pub­lic in news reports yes­ter­day.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the fail­ure of com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the employ­er and port com­pa­ny was astound­ing and deeply dis­turb­ing.

He says there have been con­flict­ing media reports about when and where the man had died, and as yet he had not even been named in pub­lic.

Work­safe New Zealand were inves­ti­gat­ing but it was report­ed police had not been informed of the inci­dent or death of the work­er until sev­er­al days after his death.

Oth­er port work­ers were in the dark as well and were not aware of what had hap­pened.

Mr Fleet­wood says some impor­tant infor­ma­tion had yet to be con­firmed such as where the injury occurred or who the prin­ci­pal employ­er was.

Why has the employ­er made no pub­lic state­ment about the death of their employ­ee?

What were the cir­cum­stances of the death?

When were Port of Tau­ran­ga informed by the employ­er about the inci­dent and sub­se­quent death – and why did they not make a pub­lic state­ment about the inci­dent until approached by media?

He says the con­fu­sion sur­round­ing the sit­u­a­tion is deplorable as work­ers had a right to know what was occur­ring in their work­place.

Mr Fleet­wood says all mar­itime work­ers find it dis­taste­ful is that no infor­ma­tion has been placed in the pub­lic domain by the employ­er or Port of Tau­ran­ga since the injury or death.

He says Port of Tau­ran­ga have a duty of care to work­ers who work with­in their port and that includes acknowl­edg­ing this type of inci­dent.

“It seems while a work­er from the port was in hos­pi­tal with fatal injuries, the Port of Tau­ran­ga put out a press state­ment on 21 August 2014 about their prof­itabil­i­ty, suc­cess and what they call a strong health and safe­ty record. This atti­tude speaks for itself.”