Maritime workers gear up to resist Ports of Auckland outsourcing

A meet­ing of around 150 Auck­land mari­time work­ers held today had a simple mes­sage for Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment about plans to out­source labour to out­side con­tract­ors: “not this cen­tury.”
Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Auck­land Loc­al 13 Garry Parsloe says the high turnout at the stop­work meet­ing reflec­ted the major con­cerns of work­ers about con­tract­ing out in the port.
Work­ers were not pre­pared to see cas­u­al­iz­a­tion and con­tract­ing out used to under­mine wages and con­di­tions, he says.
Mr Parsloe says work­ers felt man­age­ment had pre-planned the con­tract­ing out approach pri­or to the sign­ing of the Col­lect­ive Employ­ment Agree­ment (CEA) in 2009, and their recent com­ments indic­ated would hide behind leg­al­it­ies to force the issue.
“Obvi­ously there would have been no agree­ment if there had been any indic­a­tion the com­pany were going to go down this path.”
He says any future nego­ti­ations will be extremely dif­fi­cult for the com­pany if they pur­sued a con­tract­ing out strategy.
“Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment seem to have the unhappy knack of finally get­ting a work­able doc­u­ment, finally start­ing to rebuild a work­able rela­tion­ship, and then kick­ing the whole thing over and stir­ring up prob­lems for them­selves and the work­force.”
Mr Parsloe says that the cur­rent CEA between the Ports of Auck­land and the Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and is a flex­ible doc­u­ment that allows the com­pany to meet the “Peaks and Troughs” of ship­ping.
He says the reas­on why the port is not oper­at­ing at full capa­city is because the Com­pany not made prop­er use of three shift a week guar­an­teed steve­dores, known as Axis Ancil­lary Employ­ees in the CEA.
“The short­fall in trained steve­dores is cre­at­ing large delays in cargo exchanges and it is now a com­mon sight to see trucks backed up wait­ing for boxes in the port.”
“Out­sourcing has little to do with effi­ciency and everything to do with cas­u­al­iz­ing the work­force.”
Mr Parsloe says the fin­an­cial return to Auck­land rate­pay­ers from the Ports of Auck­land had been sub­stan­tial over the past five years, due to the efforts of the work­force at the Ports of Auck­land.
He says that “paro­chi­al and destruct­ive” com­pet­i­tion between ports had res­ul­ted in ship­ping com­pan­ies being charged unreal­ist­ic­ally low rates, and man­age­ment were now try­ing to “bleed work­ers” to make up the short­fall.
“Mari­time work­ers are not going to have their wages and con­di­tions attacked to prop up the profits of glob­al ship­ping com­pan­ies.”