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Maritime Union of New Zealand says it will stop work on blacklisted ship in Australian dispute

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says it will stop work on the ship involved in the Port Kem­bla water­front dis­pute in Aus­tralia if it comes to New Zealand.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says if the MV Capo Noli enters any port in New Zealand, the dis­pute in Port Kem­bla will be imme­di­ate­ly extend­ed to New Zealand.

The Union has offered its full sup­port to the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia, who are fight­ing an attempt by multi­na­tion­al ship­ping cor­po­ra­tion CSL to make Third World crews do water­front work in Port Kem­bla in New South Wales.

Maritime workers onboard protest at Port of Tauranga

A del­e­ga­tion of Mar­itime Union mem­bers will go onboard the ves­sel Buz­zard Bay at the Port of Tau­ran­ga today to deliv­er a mes­sage to the cap­tain about prac­tices aboard the ship.

The Buz­zard Bay is trad­ing with­out an Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) agree­ment that guar­an­tees employ­ment con­di­tions are main­tained at an accept­able inter­na­tion­al­ly agreed lev­el, and the health, wel­fare, social and human rights of crew are also pro­tect­ed.

The over­seas crew on the ves­sel have been unlash­ing car­go in New Zealand waters with­out per­mits.

Maritime Union welcomes growing political support for coastal shipping

The Mar­itime Union has wel­comed Green MP Sue Brad­ford’s strong sup­port of Coastal Ship­ping in Par­lia­ment this week.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says he sup­ports Ms Brad­ford’s view pre­sent­ed in her State­ment to the Prime Min­is­ter that there needs to be some major Bud­get announce­ments to kick start the Coastal Ship­ping indus­try.

Major new New Zealand Transport Union on track

The Rail and Mar­itime Trans­port Union (RMTU) and Mar­itime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) have announced an ‘agree­ment in prin­ci­ple’ to form a major new trans­port union.

A joint nego­ti­at­ing team has out­lined a process for the for­ma­tion of the new amal­ga­mat­ed Union that will cov­er both mar­itime work­ers in ports and on ves­sels, Rail and oth­er Trans­port Indus­try work­ers.

Fur­ther nego­ti­a­tions will now take place on the final struc­ture of the new Union, with the final pro­pos­al to be vot­ed on by all mem­bers of the RMTU and MUNZ.

A cashless Christmas for foreign fishing crews far from home

A sec­ond group of Ukrain­ian crew mem­bers aboard the arrest­ed ves­sel Alek­san­dr Kseno­fontov in Dunedin are at log­ger­heads with employ­ers and have approached the Mar­itime Union seek­ing help.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the sit­u­a­tion with the fish­ing ves­sel is a clas­sic exam­ple of the prob­lems still com­ing to the sur­face in the fish­ing indus­try.

Mr Han­son says around 14 senior crew mem­bers, believed to be offi­cers, have approached the Dunedin police and the Mar­itime Union claim­ing their con­tract has been bro­ken.

Industrial action on cards if job losses from Stadium

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says the Port of Auck­land is too impor­tant to be dis­rupt­ed by the pro­posed water­front sta­di­um.

Mar­itime Union Local 13 Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says job loss­es are a major con­cern if the sta­di­um inter­feres with the run­ning of Ports of Auck­land, and the Union would con­sid­er indus­tri­al action to pro­tect work­ers liveli­hoods.

“The Ports of Auck­land are ask­ing for guar­an­tees that they will not suf­fer any finan­cial loss from the sta­di­um project, and like­wise the Mar­itime Union will be seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for our mem­bers for any loss of work.”

Last Kiwi crew on trans-Tasman vessel stage shipboard protest

Mem­bers of the Mar­itime Union are stag­ing a protest today on board a ves­sel at the Ports of Auck­land.

Mar­itime Union Auck­land Sea­far­ers Branch Sec­re­tary Gar­ry Parsloe says the crew mem­bers start­ed their protest on the trans-Tas­man freighter Rotoiti at the Ports of Auck­land Bledis­loe Ter­mi­nal at 7am this morn­ing Sat­ur­day 4 Novem­ber 2006.

He says the crew are draw­ing atten­tion to the fact that when the Rotoiti is with­drawn from ser­vice on 26 Novem­ber, it will be the end of the last New Zealand crewed ship work­ing on the trans-Tas­man trade.

Port merger must be driven by public interest, not commercial interests

The Mar­itime Union says that co-oper­a­tion between ports and regions is vital to the future of the mar­itime indus­try and New Zealand.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the pro­posed merg­er of Ports of Auck­land and Port of Tau­ran­ga needs to be man­aged as part of a nation­al ports strat­e­gy dri­ven by region­al co-oper­a­tion.

He says that the recent coastal ship­ping report by the Ship­ping Fed­er­a­tion and the announce­ment of a Gov­ern­ment review into casu­al­iza­tion of employ­ment showed that good work was being done on the prob­lems faced by the mar­itime indus­try.

International maritime unions gather in Wellington

Mar­itime unions from around the Pacif­ic are rep­re­sent­ed in Welling­ton this week for the sec­ond three-year­ly con­fer­ence of the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand.
The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has wel­comed del­e­ga­tions from the All Japan Dock­ers Union, the Inter­na­tion­al Long­shore and Ware­house Union (ILWU) from the west coast of North Amer­i­ca, and the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia, who have made pre­sen­ta­tions at the con­fer­ence on indus­tri­al and polit­i­cal issues.
Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says sev­er­al key themes have emerged from the Con­fer­ence.

Maritime Union says minimum wage free trade deal will meet industrial resistance

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the Union will resist any attempt to under­mine wages and con­di­tions through short term casu­al work­ers import­ed under free trade deals.

He says that com­ments by Trade Min­is­ter Phil Goff on the Chi­na free trade deal are dis­turb­ing for work­ers and not in line with the Labour Gov­ern­men­t’s com­mit­ment to a high skill, high wage econ­o­my.

There will be no incen­tive for train­ing or pay­ing for skills if busi­ness­es are able to step out­side the nation­al labour mar­ket and pull in trained staff on the min­i­mum wage, says Mr Han­son.