Maritime Union of New Zealand affiliates to International Dockerworkers Council (IDC)

New Zealand’s water­front work­ers have affil­i­ated to a glob­al organ­iz­a­tion of dock­work­ers.

The Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and voted at its July 2022 Nation­al Coun­cil meet­ing to affil­i­ate to the Inter­na­tion­al Dock­work­ers Coun­cil.

That meet­ing was addressed by IDC Asia–Oceania rep­res­ent­at­ive Paul Keat­ing, who is the Sec­ret­ary of the Sydney Branch of the Mari­time Uni­on of Aus­tralia.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the affil­i­ation is a nat­ur­al pro­gres­sion for the Uni­on.

“Dock­ers and water­front work­ers have very close inter­na­tion­al bonds as a res­ult of us all being part of the first glob­al­ized industry, mari­time trans­port.”

He says com­mon issues faced by dock­work­ers through­out the world included auto­ma­tion, tech­no­lo­gic­al changes, hos­tile anti-work­er laws, privat­iz­a­tion, and GNTs (glob­al net­work ter­min­al oper­at­ors.)

Mr Har­ris­on says build­ing inter­na­tion­al unity amongst work­ers was a pri­or­ity for the IDC.

He says the IDC was formed in 2000 fol­low­ing the struggle of the Liv­er­pool Dock­ers in the 1990s. In 2022, the IDC has over 140,000 dock­work­ers and port work­ers in its ranks glob­ally.

Mr Har­ris­on says the MUNZ affil­i­ation to the IDC is com­ple­ment­ary to the affil­i­ation of the Mari­time Uni­on to the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF.)

Back­ground

The IDC (Inter­na­tion­al Dock­work­ers Coun­cil) is an asso­ci­ation formed by organ­iz­a­tions of dock­work­ers from all over the world. It is defined by its basic prin­ciples as being a united, inde­pend­ent, demo­crat­ic, assembly-based work­ing-class organ­iz­a­tion.

The IDC object­ives are to sup­port mem­ber uni­ons in win­ning and main­tain­ing appro­pri­ate labor stand­ards and work­ing con­di­tions in the sec­tor for all port work­ers world­wide, to cre­ate a net­work of inter­na­tion­al solid­ar­ity in defense of the pro­fes­sion and to act­ively par­ti­cip­ate as an inter­na­tion­al move­ment of work­ers stand­ing up to the eco­nom­ic glob­al­iz­a­tion of busi­nesses in the sec­tor.

Glob­ally, the IDC is the only inter­na­tion­al organ­iz­a­tion that coordin­ates and dir­ectly brings togeth­er dock­work­ers’ uni­ons.