Maritime Union has strong views on transport productivity inquiry

The Mar­itime Union says it intends to make sure a Gov­ern­ment inquiry into trans­port and logis­tics is not just about pro­mot­ing pri­va­ti­za­tion in the ports sec­tor.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the Union will be tak­ing an active and crit­i­cal approach in its con­tri­bu­tions to the Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Com­mis­sion’s inquiry into Inter­na­tion­al Freight Trans­port Ser­vices.

“We won’t be accept­ing any sta­tus quo think­ing and ‘free mar­ket is best’ assump­tions that some­times accom­pa­nies these reports.”

Key issues for the Union include keep­ing con­trol of New Zealand ports in New Zealand hands.

Mr Fleet­wood says any move to pri­va­tize ports would quick­ly result in the con­trol of New Zealand’s logis­tics infra­struc­ture pass­ing to GNT (glob­al net­work ter­mi­nal) oper­a­tors and ship­pers, who would oper­ate the sys­tem for their own ben­e­fit, not New Zealand’s ben­e­fit.

He says many prob­lems with New Zealand ports cur­rent­ly come from lack of plan­ning and co-ordi­na­tion, not through lack of com­pe­ti­tion.

“The Mar­itime Union is propos­ing a KiwiPort con­cept where port own­er­ship remains in com­mu­ni­ty con­trol but nation­al co-ordi­na­tion is used to min­i­mize dis­rup­tion and end the dupli­ca­tion of infra­struc­ture we cur­rent­ly see.”

The Mar­itime Union had been argu­ing for years that secure per­ma­nent jobs, a career path for young peo­ple enter­ing the indus­try, and world lead­ing health and safe­ty had to under­pin any pro­duc­tiv­i­ty gains.

“There is no point expect­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty from casu­al­ized work­ers who are not prop­er­ly trained and for whom there is no career path. But this is the approach of many employ­ers in the indus­try.”

“We will be mak­ing sure that pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is not just an account­ing term for employ­er prof­it, but refers to the well­be­ing of work­ers in the indus­try.”

He says the Union ques­tions some of the assump­tions sug­gest­ed by the Pro­duc­tiv­i­ty Com­mis­sion, includ­ing a con­cept of com­pe­ti­tion as an intrin­sic good.

“In the mar­itime indus­try, com­pe­ti­tion has dri­ven cor­ner cut­ting on health and safe­ty which has led to deaths and injuries, down­wards pres­sure on wages and con­di­tions result­ing in casu­al­iza­tion, and a lack of nation­al co-ordi­na­tion in the port sec­tor.”

“We are look­ing at the real world sit­u­a­tion, not an eco­nom­ics text­book. We are the peo­ple who are out there being pro­duc­tive around the clock and we expect our voic­es to car­ry some weight.”

The Mar­itime Union is also pro­mot­ing a much greater role for coastal ship­ping as an impor­tant part of the low-impact, envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able trans­port mix of the 21st cen­tu­ry.

Coastal ship­ping and region­al ports also pro­vide an impor­tant secu­ri­ty and civ­il defence func­tion, as had been seen dur­ing the Christchurch Earth­quake dis­as­ter, when ports pro­vid­ed the main emer­gency logis­tics link for relief sup­plies.