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Maritime Union highlights negative effects of Fonterra port pull out

The Mar­itime Union says region­al ports have been hit hard because of a deci­sion by Fonter­ra to rail goods to dis­tant ports.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the moves have already led to notices of major redun­dan­cies in the port of Timaru, greater casu­al­iza­tion of the work­force, and was threat­en­ing the via­bil­i­ty of some ports.

“This issue can­not be dealt with by ports con­tin­u­ing to com­pete each oth­er into the ground. It must be addressed by nation­al co-ordi­na­tion of our trans­port sys­tem, not the waste­ful, inse­cure and chaot­ic mess we have at the moment.”

Ports of Auckland under threat from secret SuperCity agenda

The Mar­itime Union says it is con­cerned about the inten­tions of the Gov­ern­ment towards Auck­land’s pub­lic assets under the pro­posed SuperCi­ty.

The union rep­re­sents sev­er­al hun­dred work­ers at the Ports of Auck­land, which pro­vides a major income to the peo­ple of Auck­land who own the port through the Auck­land Region­al Coun­cil.

Mar­itime Union Local 13 Sec­re­tary Rus­sell Mayn says there has been an ongo­ing “soft­en­ing up” cam­paign from big busi­ness inter­ests to sell off the Ports of Auck­land so they can get their hands on them.

He says there is seri­ous cause for con­cern that the SuperCi­ty plan for Auck­land’s local gov­ern­ment will be used to push for­ward pri­va­ti­za­tion of assets — includ­ing the port.

Fonterra and shipping companies held up to scrutiny

The Mar­itime Union’s com­ments on the effect on ports of deci­sions by Fonter­ra and ship­ping com­pa­nies have fea­tured wide­ly in the news.

TVNZ reports that “the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand is call­ing for nation­al co-ordi­na­tion of port strat­e­gy, argu­ing that Fonter­ra is exert­ing such pow­er as a cus­tomer it is effec­tive­ly ratio­nal­is­ing the port indus­try.”

The Tarana­ki Dai­ly News writes that “Zealand’s water­front work­ers and sea­far­ers have sav­aged Fonter­ra’s deci­sion to drop Port Tarana­ki, warn­ing it has the poten­tial to ‘rip the guts out’ of the port” fol­low­ing a “a bomb­shell deci­sion last week, the dairy giant said it would be rail­ing Whareroa prod­uct to Auck­land and Tau­ran­ga instead.”

Regional ports at mercy of Fonterra and shipping companies

The Mar­itime Union says Fonter­ra’s deci­sion to stop ship­ping con­tainer­ized exports through Port Tarana­ki and Port Timaru was an exam­ple of how entire region­al economies with­in New Zealand were being dis­rupt­ed.

The recent announce­ment by Fonter­ra means the loss of 25,000 box­es of car­go to Port Tarana­ki in New Ply­mouth, and the loss of 24,000 box­es to Port Timaru annu­al­ly.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the “overnight deci­sions” by Fonter­ra and major ship­ping com­pa­nies are harm­ing region­al com­mu­ni­ties and region­al ports through a process of “destruc­tive com­pe­ti­tion” where ports expe­ri­enced major and unpre­dictable changes in ship­ments.

Unions oppose increasing GST

The Coun­cil of Trade Union says a pro­pos­al to increase in GST would hit low income earn­ers hard.

Port Otago workers reject company restructuring proposal

A com­bined union meet­ing at Port Ota­go today vot­ed to reject new restruc­tur­ing pro­pos­als from Port Ota­go man­age­ment.

Around 200 union mem­bers attend­ed a stop­work meet­ing at 1pm which halt­ed work around the port and packed the Union hall in one of the largest meet­ings of recent years.

Port of Otago “near crisis”

The Ota­go Dai­ly Times reports on the Port Chalmers sit­u­a­tion as man­age­ment con­tin­ue to push unwant­ed plans.

Health and safety group — only bosses invited …

More news on why work­ers have not been invit­ed to the Gov­ern­men­t’s health and safe­ty dis­cus­sion group — only cor­po­rate chief exec­u­tives!

Transport unions demand place for workers in health and safety group

Trans­port work­ers have ques­tioned why work­ers have not been invit­ed to join a new health and safe­ty group being set up by the Min­is­ter of Labour.

Inquiry into fishing industry needed

The Mar­itime Union says infor­ma­tion revealed in a New Zealand doc­u­men­tary on the fish­ing indus­try must be fol­lowed up by a Gov­ern­ment inquiry.

The doc­u­men­tary The Great New Zealand Fish­ing Scan­dal by inves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Guy Hen­der­son screened on Sky last night and today, and cov­ered devel­op­ments in the indus­try since the 1990s.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the doc­u­men­tary was accu­rate and he believes there is much more to be uncov­ered.