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Maritime Union warns of declining standards on waterfront

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Joe Fleet­wood says employ­ers and Gov­ern­ment agen­cies appear to be turn­ing a blind eye to unsafe work­ing con­di­tions in New Zealand ports.

He says there have been ongo­ing feed­back from work­ers that paints a pic­ture of a decline in stan­dards in many ports.

Mr Fleet­wood says that the reces­sion and increas­ing com­pe­ti­tion for avail­able car­go in New Zealand ports means many employ­ers are cut­ting cor­ners.

Maritime Union slideshow on YouTube

Fea­tur­ing “Lamp­black” by Chris Prowse from the album “Trou­ble on the Water­front” avail­able on iTunes and good NZ music stores

Job losses averted at Port Otago

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says an agree­ment it has reached with Port Ota­go Lim­it­ed is a “win win” sit­u­a­tion that will pre­vent job loss­es.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Pres­i­dent Phil Adams says a meet­ing of 150 car­go han­dlers held yes­ter­day at Port Chalmers vot­ed in favour of a pro­pos­al ham­mered out by the Unions and the Com­pa­ny.

Mem­bers of the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand and the Rail and Mar­itime Trans­port Union attend­ed the meet­ing.

Mr Adams says the pro­pos­al will see no com­pul­so­ry redun­dan­cies amongst the work­force.

“We believe the work­force will respond to the Com­pa­ny’s efforts by con­tin­u­ing to ensure a high lev­el of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.”

Maritimes magazine Spring 2009 online now

Down­load the Mar­itimes mag­a­zine, Spring 2009 edi­tion here (PDF, 2.8 Mb)

Seafarers Scholarships available for 2010

Four Sea­far­ers Schol­ar­ships are avail­able for MUNZ sea­far­er mem­bers, and chil­dren or grand­chil­dren of New Zealand sea­far­ers, for study in 2010 at Uni­ver­si­ty or tech­ni­cal insti­tutes.

Details and appli­ca­tion infor­ma­tion for the schol­ar­ships is avail­able here.

Maritime Union elects new national officials in union elections

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has elect­ed two new nation­al offi­cials in their three-year­ly union elec­tions.

The new Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Union is Joe Fleet­wood of Welling­ton.

A new Assis­tant Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Union has also been elect­ed, Ray Fife, of Bluff.

The Nation­al Pres­i­dent of the Mar­itime Union, Phil Adams of Port Chalmers, was re-elect­ed unop­posed.

The Nation­al Vice Pres­i­dent of the Mar­itime Union, Gar­ry Parsloe of Auck­land, was also re-elect­ed unop­posed.

The elec­tions took place in a postal bal­lot of all finan­cial mem­bers of the Union which closed last Fri­day.

The new Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of the Union, Joe Fleet­wood, thanked mem­bers for their sup­port and thanked all mem­bers who took part in the demo­c­ra­t­ic process of the elec­tions.

Unions unite in Ports of Auckland labour blunder

The Ports of Auck­land has been put on notice from Unions that it will have to train its own work­force rather than fly in staff from oth­er ports.

The port com­pa­ny wants to trans­fer skilled labour from Welling­ton and Lyt­tel­ton to keep up with work after 12 weeks ago lay­ing off a sub­stan­tial num­ber of work­ers.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Vice Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe says the sit­u­a­tion is a result of the port com­pa­ny ignor­ing Union advice.

“They were told there were too many redun­dan­cies, and it would cre­ate a short­age of skilled work­ers. Now this has hap­pened.”

He says that the Mar­itime Union would only agree for Unionised work­ers being trans­ferred into Auck­land if there was a writ­ten com­mit­ment from the Ports of Auck­land to train a suf­fi­cient num­ber of its own work­force.

International maritime workers represented at Maritime Union 2009 Conference

Mar­itime work­ers from around the world have gath­ered in Welling­ton this week as the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand holds its third tri­en­ni­al con­fer­ence.

The three day con­fer­ence sets the agen­da for the next three years of the Union and runs through to Thurs­day 29 Octo­ber.

The con­fer­ence was opened this morn­ing by Leader of the Oppo­si­tion Phil Goff.

Redundancy plan at Port Chalmers will be resisted

Union mem­bers at Port Chalmers are vow­ing to resist redun­dan­cy threats. 35 jobs have been put at risk after man­age­ment announce­ments, despite Port Otago’s ongo­ing prof­itabil­i­ty.

A full report is online here at the Ota­go Dai­ly Times.

Maritime Union thanks Sue Bradford for her support for workers

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has thanked Green MP Sue Brad­ford, who announced her res­ig­na­tion from Par­lia­ment today, for her sup­port for work­ers and those with­out a voice in the polit­i­cal process.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says Sue Brad­ford was a friend of the Mar­itime Union and all work­ers.

“Sue was a prin­ci­ple dri­ven politi­cian dur­ing her time in Par­lia­ment who was ahead of her time and who pro­vid­ed a con­trast to many oth­er face­less rep­re­sen­ta­tives.”