Ports of Auckland could be branded first ever port of convenience

The ports of Auck­land in New Zealand could be declared the first ever port of con­ve­nience if man­age­ment does not put a stop to its sav­age attack on union rights, the ITF has warned.

Work­ers rep­re­sent­ed by the ITF-affil­i­at­ed Mar­itime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) have been locked in an esca­lat­ing dis­pute over a new col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment.

The MUNZ and Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed (POAL) had been close to sign­ing a new agree­ment, which saw the union agree­ing to greater use of a pro­duc­tiv­i­ty improve­ment process known as TRACC.

How­ev­er, it has recent­ly been report­ed that POAL man­age­ment is now tak­ing the provoca­tive step of attempt­ing to remove the col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ment with MUNZ alto­geth­er.

It is also threat­en­ing the whole work­force of some 300 dock­ers with dis­missal if they do not sign up to an agree­ment imposed by man­age­ment.

In a let­ter to Tony Gib­son, chief exec­u­tive offi­cer of POAL, ITF pres­i­dent Pad­dy Crum­lin and ITF gen­er­al sec­re­tary David Cock­roft said: “The ITF con­sid­ers this behav­iour as an out­ra­geous attack on basic trade union rights. If this attempt to force work­ers to aban­don their exist­ing agree­ments con­tin­ues, the ITF will declare the port of Auck­land a ‘port of con­ve­nience’ and will request affil­i­ates around the world , par­tic­u­lar­ly in the dock­ers’ and sea­far­ers’ sec­tions, to take imme­di­ate law­ful action.”