Maritime Union condemns latest Ports of Auckland outsourcing move

The Ports of Auck­land has con­firmed that it is pro­ceed­ing with a plan to sack its steve­dor­ing work­force.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe says the union met with man­age­ment this morn­ing to find out the details of a man­age­ment scheme to out­source jobs.

Mr Parsloe says the union attend­ed the meet­ing to find out what the com­pa­ny plan was, and to receive infor­ma­tion that would be tak­en back to the mem­ber­ship for dis­cus­sion.

“The posi­tion of the Mar­itime Union and our mem­bers at Ports of Auck­land remains clear. We will not accept this attack on work­ers and their basic rights of employ­ment through con­tract­ing out aimed at under­min­ing job secu­ri­ty.”

Mr Parsloe says there was still a win­dow for a nego­ti­at­ed solu­tion, and noth­ing had been final­ized.

“We think man­age­ment need to change tack pret­ty quick­ly, because where they are head­ing could have very bad con­se­quences for the port.”

He says their deci­sions brought into ques­tion their judge­ment, their motives and gave a sense there is anoth­er agen­da here that the peo­ple of Auck­land who own the port have not been told about.

Strong state­ments of sup­port for port work­ers had been received from the Coun­cil of Trade Unions and affil­i­at­ed unions, the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion, polit­i­cal orga­ni­za­tions and rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and indi­vid­ual mem­bers of the com­mu­ni­ty.

“Peo­ple under­stand this how con­tract­ing out action would lead to a casu­al­ized work­force in one of Auckland’s key assets, and is being used as part of a broad­er port pri­va­ti­za­tion grab.”