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Roading the wrong focus for New Zealand infrastructure

New Zealand’s two lead­ing trans­port unions say that pour­ing pub­lic mon­ey only into road­ing and ignor­ing oth­er trans­port infra­struc­ture is a mis­take.

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand, rep­re­sent­ing sea­far­ers and water­front workers,and the Rail and Mar­itime Trans­port Union, rep­re­sent­ing rail and port work­ers, are con­cerned that eco­nom­ic stim­u­lus plans focus trans­port invest­ment exclu­sive­ly on road­ing.

The trans­port unions say that while the Gov­ern­ment is cor­rect in invest­ing in infra­struc­ture as a stim­u­lus for the econ­o­my, it’s sole focus on invest­ing in roads is wrong.

Maritime Union backs plans for minimum wage referendum

The Mar­itime Union is back­ing moves for a ref­er­en­dum on boost­ing the min­i­mum wage.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand spokesper­son Vic­tor Bil­lot says the Union has offered its sup­port for the pro­posed ref­er­en­dum put for­ward by the Unite Union.

Work stoppages considered over police spy scandal

The Mar­itime Union may call a nation­al work stop­page to hold stop­work meet­ings of its mem­bers to dis­cuss the police spy scan­dal.

The Mar­itime Union was one of a num­ber of Unions report­ed­ly named in emails about union actions sent by police informer Rob Gilchrist to his han­dler in the Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tion Group.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Mar­itime Union is sup­port­ing calls for a high lev­el Com­mis­sion of Inquiry into the Police’s Spe­cial Inves­ti­ga­tion Group.

Maritime Union will fight attack on job security by 90 day fire at will bill

The Mar­itime Union says it will fight to pro­tect job secu­ri­ty as the back­lash grows against the Nation­al Gov­ern­men­t’s attempt to push through the “fire at will” bill before Christ­mas.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the attempt to rush through the 90 day “fire at will” bill through at a time of mount­ing unem­ploy­ment and job inse­cu­ri­ty is mad­ness.

Maritime Union members to meet during 24 hour strike at Ports of Auckland

The Mar­itime Union says it is com­mit­ted to a res­o­lu­tion in the Ports of Auck­land dis­pute, and mem­bers will be dis­cussing a way for­ward dur­ing a one day strike that starts tonight.

Around 300 work­ers in the Ports of Auck­land con­tain­er ter­mi­nal steve­dor­ing, road, rail, shut­tle and engi­neer­ing ser­vices areas will with­draw labour for a 24 hour peri­od start­ing at 10.59pm on Tues­day 2 Decem­ber.

Maritime Union to return to mediation in Auckland dispute

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand will return to medi­a­tion on Fri­day with Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment fol­low­ing medi­a­tion today in Auck­land.

Maritime Union confirms Ports of Auckland strike action

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has con­firmed strike action at the Ports of Auck­land for Tues­day 2 Decem­ber and Wednes­day 3 Decem­ber 2008.

Four­teen days notice of the strike action was giv­en to the Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment ear­ly this after­noon by Mar­itime Union Local 13, which rep­re­sents water­front and oth­er work­ers at the Port.

Casual workers must be offered support in recession

The Mar­itime Union says that pro­tec­tion for casu­al work­ers in the eco­nom­ic reces­sion is a major focus for 2009.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Union is inter­est­ed in meet­ing with the incom­ing Min­is­ter of Labour in the new Nation­al-led Gov­ern­ment to dis­cuss the plight of casu­al work­ers.

Unionize to beat redundancy pain in economic meltdown

The Mar­itime Union says that mem­ber­ship in a union is the best strat­e­gy for work­ers to get pro­tec­tions at a time of inter­na­tion­al eco­nom­ic tur­moil.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says that while both major polit­i­cal par­ties have been out­lin­ing pre-elec­tion “job tran­si­tion poli­cies” to assist redun­dant work­ers, the best guar­an­tee for work­ers to do even bet­ter was to join a union today.

Qualified support for South Island ports merger

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has offered qual­i­fied sup­port to the merg­er of Lyt­tel­ton Port Com­pa­ny and the Port of Ota­go announced today.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Union is a strong backer of ports remain­ing in local con­trol to pre­serve employ­ment and busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties.