Maritime Union welcomes new extended shipping service to Ports of Auckland

The Mar­itime Union says the announce­ment of a new extend­ed inter­na­tion­al ship­ping ser­vice at the Ports of Auck­land is great news.

An expand­ed ser­vice oper­at­ed by glob­al ship­ping lines OOCL and CMA CGM has been announced as part of its ANZEX ser­vice cov­er­ing the New Zealand and Far East mar­kets, that will boost ship­ping calls in Auck­land.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe says the deci­sion is a vote of con­fi­dence in the port.

He says it rein­forces the case made by the New Zealand Her­ald in a recent edi­to­r­i­al that occa­sion­al labour dis­putes were an “improb­a­ble” fac­tor for glob­al ship­ping lines decid­ing their ports of call.

Mr Parsloe says it was unusu­al that the Mar­itime Union was hav­ing to wel­come the new ser­vice, since Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment had been mute on the pos­i­tive devel­op­ment.

“Ports of Auck­land CEO Tony Gib­son’s bad news media machine has spent the last month bag­ging his own port, crit­i­ciz­ing the work­force, say­ing its pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is no good, prais­ing up his com­pe­ti­tion and going out to bat for Maer­sk. But when they get some good news, they go all qui­et. It’s like they want to pro­mote all the neg­a­tive stuff and ignore the suc­cess­es.”

Mr Parsloe says the extend­ed ship­ping ser­vice is a great boost for the Ports of Auck­land and proved that the port had an excel­lent future.

He says that the announce­ment could be embar­rass­ing for the Ports of Auck­land CEO, giv­en his recent com­ments that blamed the Mar­itime Union for loss of ship­ping calls at the port.

“How­ev­er a lit­tle per­son­al embar­rass­ment is not impor­tant com­pared to the big pic­ture that Ports of Auck­land con­tin­ues to attract new ship­ping and this reflects well on the port and its work­force.”

Mr Parsloe says he hopes that man­age­ment would now con­cen­trate on a suc­cess­ful con­clu­sion to cur­rent employ­ment nego­ti­a­tions rather than pro­mot­ing non-issues.