New Zealand wharfies join international day of action against Qube Ports

New Zealand mar­itime work­ers will be ral­ly­ing in sup­port of Aus­tralian work­ers at Qube Ports on Mon­day 16 Decem­ber 2024.

Aus­tralian wharfies at Qube are stop­ping work at ten ports in an Inter­na­tion­al Day of Action to expose Qube Ports’ refusal to take safe­ty, fatigue and work-life bal­ance con­cerns seri­ous­ly dur­ing bar­gain­ing for a new employ­ment agree­ment cov­er­ing more than 1000 work­ers.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Carl Find­lay says New Zealand wharfies will be sup­port­ing the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia in their strug­gle, with del­e­gates head­ing across the Tas­man in both direc­tions, an inter­na­tion­al video link, and protest events to be held in two New Zealand ports.

TAURANGA infor­ma­tion­al pick­et Mon­day 16 Decem­ber (1pm–3pm)
Hull Road, Mt. Maun­ganui (Port gates)

GISBORNE infor­ma­tion­al pick­et Mon­day 16 Decem­ber (Morn­ing)
Cor­ner of Pacif­ic Coast High­way and Hiri­ni Street

Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia del­e­gates and MUNZ offi­cials will be attend­ing these pick­ets and avail­able to talk to media.

Mr Find­lay says Qube man­age­ment need to be aware their actions in Aus­tralia will have con­se­quences for their brand and cred­i­bil­i­ty inter­na­tion­al­ly unless they change their atti­tude towards their work­force.

He says the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia (MUA) and the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) will be “act­ing as one.”

Qube Ports in Aus­tralia is an ASX list­ed behe­moth which has extract­ed mega-prof­its in recent years from the pro­duc­tiv­i­ty deliv­ered by their hard work­ing employ­ees, and has dogged­ly refused to sit down and nego­ti­ate a new agree­ment with their work­force. 

The MUA says Qube has repeat­ed­ly dis­missed safe­ty and fatigue con­cerns and declared it unprof­itable to oper­ate a busi­ness which takes safe­ty seri­ous­ly. 

While wharfies’ pay has gone back­wards against infla­tion, exec­u­tive bonus­es and share­hold­er div­i­dends have soared. Over the last four years, Qube prof­its have jumped by 148%.

The MUA has repeat­ed­ly called on the com­pa­ny to return to the bar­gain­ing table and engage mean­ing­ful­ly with the safe­ty, fatigue and work-life bal­ance con­cerns that Qube employ­ees are rais­ing.