Maritime Union steps up support of locked out Progressive workers

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has boost­ed its sup­port of locked out dis­tri­b­u­tion work­ers at Pro­gres­sive Enter­pris­es with union mem­bers to con­tribute one hours wages per week until the dis­pute is set­tled.

Mar­itime Union Act­ing Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Ter­ry Ryan says the res­o­lu­tion was passed unan­i­mous­ly on a nation­al con­fer­ence call of all ports today.

“The Mar­itime Union is 100% com­mit­ted to sup­port­ing the locked out work­ers at Pro­gres­sive using all finan­cial, indus­tri­al and polit­i­cal meth­ods open to us.”

He says the meet­ing was briefed by a senior Nation­al Dis­tri­b­u­tion Union offi­cial and heard from Mar­itime Union branch­es in affect­ed areas.

Mr Ryan says the Mar­itime Union will con­tin­ue to play a lead­ing role in sup­port­ing the locked out work­ers, with mar­itime work­ers join­ing pick­ets in Auck­land and Christchurch, and send­ing a del­e­ga­tion to Palmer­ston North.

“The Mar­itime Union is work­ing to build inter­na­tion­al sup­port for the locked out work­ers with oth­er trans­port unions inside and out­side New Zealand.”

There has been strong sup­port from Aus­tralian Unions and the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) based in Lon­don, says Mr Ryan.

The ITF com­pris­es of 624 unions rep­re­sent­ing 4,500,000 trans­port work­ers in 142 coun­tries and has placed the Pro­gres­sive dis­pute high on its agen­da.

Mr Ryan says the issue was sim­ple.

“This is a multi­na­tion­al com­pa­ny that makes its huge prof­its from New Zealand work­ers shop­ping at their super­mar­kets, but they are try­ing to starve their work­ers into sub­mis­sion – and we are not going to let them get away with it.”