New Zealand maritime workers back MUA in offshore industry

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has con­grat­u­lat­ed the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia (MUA) in its suc­cess­ful and ongo­ing cam­paign in improv­ing wages and con­di­tions in the off­shore indus­try.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says off­shore mar­itime work­ers are work­ing in a tough and unfor­giv­ing envi­ron­ment and all work­ers ben­e­fit from strong unions like the MUA lead­ing the way for­ward.

He says the recent media attack from the Aus­tralian Insti­tute of Marine and Pow­er Engi­neers (AIMPE) on the MUA’s off­shore strat­e­gy has blown the cred­i­bil­i­ty of the AIMPE.

The AIMPE is an affil­i­ate of the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion, and the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand will be seek­ing an expla­na­tion of their lead­er­ship’s pub­lic state­ments attack­ing a fel­low mar­itime union for doing their job.

The AIMPE lead­er­ship need to fig­ure out whether they are rep­re­sent­ing work­ers or rep­re­sent­ing employ­ers, says Mr Fleet­wood.

Mr Fleet­wood sayd the ongo­ing attacks on the MUA in the big busi­ness owned Aus­tralian media are to be expect­ed and need to be coun­tered by get­ting the real sto­ry out through work­ing class com­mu­ni­ties.

“Any group of work­ers that is suc­cess­ful­ly orga­nized and achiev­ing good results are regard­ed as a threat to the vast prof­its cor­po­rate own­ers and man­agers are grab­bing. So all the flak the MUA are get­ting is a sign you are mak­ing good progress.”