Port contracting out proposal unlawful — union

The Mari­time Uni­on says that the Ports of Auck­land decision to dis­miss its work­force is unlaw­ful, and work­ers will chal­lenge it.

The Mari­time Uni­on has asked the Employ­ment Court for a rul­ing on wheth­er Port man­age­ment dis­miss­ing its work­force, while in nego­ti­ations over an employ­ment agree­ment for those jobs, is against the law, MUNZ Nation­al Pres­id­ent Garry Parsloe said.

The uni­on has today also released its full response to the com­pany pro­pos­al.

“Ports of Auck­land gave little con­sid­er­a­tion to our response to them on their con­tract­ing out pro­pos­al,” said Garry Parsloe.

“We set out in detail all the prob­lems with their pro­pos­al, but they have clearly just been going through the motions, and push­ing ahead with their plan to take away job secur­ity for work­ers.”

The uni­on response to the pro­posed redund­an­cies was yes­ter­day sent to all Auck­land Coun­cil­lors, and they needed to put a stop to the Port management’s actions, Garry Parsloe said.

“The Coun­cil needs to inter­vene to ensure that this flawed con­tract­ing mod­el is not imple­men­ted in their name as the means to deliv­er an unreal­ist­ic 12% return.”

Garry Parsloe said Ports work­ers were invit­ing the pub­lic of Auck­land to join them at a rally for secure jobs and a sus­tain­able port, at Brito­mart this Sat­urday at 4pm.

In their response to the pro­posed dis­missal, work­ers argued that:

• The dis­missal pro­pos­al is unlaw­ful;
• The dis­missal pro­pos­al is under­min­ing of the bar­gain­ing for a Col­lect­ive Agree­ment, and amounts to an unlaw­ful lock­out;
• The decision to split the decision to con­tract out, from issues sur­round­ing the imple­ment­a­tion of con­tract­ing out is arti­fi­cial, and has pre­cluded a prop­er con­sulta­tion;
• The pro­pos­al is imprac­tic­al;
• The pro­pos­al relies on stat­ist­ic­al data to estab­lish a crisis in com­par­is­on to the Port of Taur­anga.  No such crisis in fact exists;
• The focus on the return on cap­it­al is not good reas­on for the dis­missal pro­pos­al.