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MUNZ Protests Outside Papua New Guinea High Commission, Demands Justice for Dockers

Union lead­ers and activists from around New Zealand were joined by Welling­ton branch in protest out­side the Papua New Guinea High Com­mis­sion on Thurs­day Novem­ber 1st.  

MUNZ ral­lied in sup­port of our PNG dock­er com­rades, a thou­sand of whom are cur­rent­ly fac­ing the sack in retal­i­a­tion for organ­is­ing a union in ports run by Fil­ipino com­pa­ny ICTSI.
As union chants filled the air out­side, MUNZ Nation­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood and Mar­itime Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion leader Mick Dole­man deliv­ered a let­ter to the High Com­mis­sion.
Our mes­sage to the PNG gov­ern­ment is sim­ple and clear — stand with your work­ers, sup­port your com­mu­ni­ties, and do not allow inter­na­tion­al cor­po­rate greed to enslave your peo­ple.
The Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion issued a press release with fur­ther details, pub­lished below.

Government of PNG under fire to review ICTSI port contracts

Pad­dy Crum­lin, Pres­i­dent of the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion today urged the Gov­ern­ment of PNG to act in the best inter­ests of its peo­ple by stand­ing with work­ers, landown­ers and com­mu­ni­ties exposed to ICTSI’s poor record on safe­ty and labour rela­tions.

“The ITF, along­side the Mar­itime Inter­na­tion­al Fed­er­a­tion, is call­ing on the Min­is­ter of Trans­port, Hon. Wes­ley Nukundj, to inter­vene and urgent­ly con­vene a meet­ing of stake­hold­ers – includ­ing union and landown­er rep­re­sen­ta­tives – to find a solu­tion to the cur­rent cri­sis,” Crum­lin said.

Over the past month, embat­tled glob­al port oper­a­tor ICTSI has been the tar­get of inter­na­tion­al con­dem­na­tion over emerg­ing pat­terns of labour vio­la­tions their net­work, poor safe­ty stan­dards, and insuf­fi­cient man­age­r­i­al over­sight to ensure pro­duc­tive indus­tri­al rela­tions, and com­pli­ance with local laws and inter­na­tion­al labour con­ven­tions.

“The deci­sion to award con­tracts at PNG’s two biggest ports to ICTSI will have a pro­found impact. The Papua New Guinea Mar­itime and Trans­port Work­ers Union, an affil­i­ate of the ITF, says that more than 1,000 jobs will be lost at the ports and in asso­ci­at­ed indus­tries due to the con­tracts award­ed to ICTSI.

“The num­ber of fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who rely on those jobs num­bers is in the thou­sands. We believe ICTSI intends to replace work­ers with a mix­ture of casu­al, out­sourced labour and Fil­ipino work­ers under the guise of men­tors. This is noth­ing short of a dis­grace.”

Joe Fleet­wood, Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand, also called on the Gov­ern­ment of PNG to act: “The PNG gov­ern­ment must put its work­ers’ inter­ests first, and pro­tect the jobs of its peo­ple. We stand ready to con­tin­ue our sup­port for the PNG work­ers and landown­ers in their just fight.”

There are sig­nif­i­cant con­cerns about how the entry of ICTSI into the PNG port sec­tor will impact on landown­er groups, the county’s domes­tic coastal ship­ping net­work and local com­mu­ni­ties. The 25-year con­tract will see landown­ers lose their share­hold­ing, with­out any com­pen­sa­tion.

“Both the Gov­ern­ment of PNG and ICTSI need to answer some seri­ous, unan­swered ques­tions. The recog­ni­tion of landown­ers’ cul­tur­al and his­toric con­nec­tion with their land, com­pen­sa­tion for their invest­ment in the ports, and their ongo­ing par­tic­i­pa­tion in the port oper­a­tions remain a mys­tery. And the impact of ICTSI’s entry on the via­bil­i­ty of PNG’s domes­tic coastal ship­ping net­work and impli­ca­tions that ICTSI’s preda­to­ry pric­ing struc­tures will have on the costs of goods in the coun­try need to be addressed,” added Crum­lin.

The protests were organ­ised by the ITF and MIF, and affil­i­ates the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia (MUA) and the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ).

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