Maritime Union of New Zealand says it will stop work on blacklisted ship in Australian dispute

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says it will stop work on the ship involved in the Port Kem­bla water­front dis­pute in Aus­tralia if it comes to New Zealand.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says if the MV Capo Noli enters any port in New Zealand, the dis­pute in Port Kem­bla will be imme­di­ate­ly extend­ed to New Zealand.

The Union has offered its full sup­port to the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia, who are fight­ing an attempt by multi­na­tion­al ship­ping cor­po­ra­tion CSL to make Third World crews do water­front work in Port Kem­bla in New South Wales.

The Mal­tese flagged MV Capo Noli is call­ing at Port Kem­bla loaded with Gyp­sum. The ves­sel is owned by Coecleri­ci Arma­tori Spa in Genoa but man­aged and crewed by Elburg Ship­man­age­ment Phils Inc. She is char­tered to Bri­ta­nia Bulk­ers UK and sub char­tered to CSL Ship­ping.

The crew has been told to dis­charge car­go using the ship’s cranes despite an inter­na­tion­al agree­ment that clear­ly states that dock­ers work, such as load­ing and unload­ing of ships, should not be done by sea­far­ers.

Mr Han­son says a nation­al meet­ing of the Union today offered its full sup­port to the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia through the Trans Tas­man Fed­er­a­tion.

“We are in reg­u­lar con­tact with the MUA and will work as one with them on this case, includ­ing black­list­ing any ships involved in this dis­pute that come to New Zealand, and send­ing del­e­gates to Aus­tralia to help with pick­ets.”

Mr Han­son says that the issue is about stop­ping glob­al com­pa­nies from exploit­ing local and Third World work­ers.

“Over­seas crews are often paid very low wages, and if com­pa­nies move them ashore their goal is to attack the wages and con­di­tions and jobs of local work­ers. It is the sin­is­ter face of cor­po­rate glob­al­iza­tion and we are going to fight it every step of the way.”

Mr Han­son says the Mar­itime Union is very con­cerned about the move­ment of casu­al short term labour across bor­ders to under­cut wages and con­di­tions using free trade agree­ments.

He says the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) rep­re­sent­ing trans­port work­ers around the world is back­ing the Union stance against what it terms “self load­ing” by ships crews.