Maritime workers support Prison Officers protest against privatization

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is sup­port­ing the Cor­rec­tions Asso­ci­a­tion in their protest today against prison pri­va­ti­za­tion at the open­ing of Par­lia­ment.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says the safe­ty and secu­ri­ty of work­ers comes before cost cut­ting mea­sures, and the Gov­ern­ment has lost the plot in its pris­ons poli­cies.

The Union has spo­ken out against the use of ship­ping con­tain­ers as makeshift jail cells.

Mr Fleet­wood says that the Mar­itime Union is incensed that the only “mar­itime pol­i­cy” the Gov­ern­ment seems to have is using con­tain­ers for jails.

“With tens of thou­sands of young New Zealan­ders join­ing the ranks of the unem­ployed, this Gov­ern­ment is doing noth­ing to sup­port New Zealand ship­ping and get­ting young peo­ple good careers in coastal ship­ping mov­ing New Zealand goods in con­tain­ers.”

“Instead young peo­ple from deprived back­grounds will lan­guish on the dole and slip into anti-social activ­i­ties – and end up inside ship­ping con­tain­ers. The Nation­al Gov­ern­ment should be ashamed of itself.”

Mr Fleet­wood says areas such as pris­ons should nev­er been pri­va­tized and used as prof­it mak­ing machines.