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.”