Port of Napier faces national and international industrial action

The Port of Napi­er faces indus­tri­al dis­rup­tion and inter­na­tion­al union sol­i­dar­i­ty actions as local work­ers pre­pare to defend their liveli­hoods.

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says man­age­ment actions are putting secure local jobs in jeop­ardy and threat­en­ing the future of the port.

A deci­sion by man­age­ment to con­tract out con­tain­er steve­dor­ing will affect around 25 per­ma­nent jobs and around 60 casu­al jobs at Hawke’s Bay Steve­dor­ing Ser­vices in the Port of Napi­er from the start of next year.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says a spe­cial nation­al meet­ing of the Union with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from all New Zealand ports and a del­e­ga­tion from the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia was held in Welling­ton this week to plan a major fight­back.

“We have made every effort to talk to the Port Com­pa­ny, but they seem deter­mined to hit the self-destruct but­ton and have left us with no option but to take this dis­pute to the next lev­el.”

Mr Han­son says the sit­u­a­tion has already had an enor­mous impact on local work­ers, and will lead to inevitable attacks on wages, con­di­tions and health and safe­ty in the future.

“We have a sit­u­a­tion here where secure local jobs that ben­e­fit the local com­mu­ni­ty are being dumped through what is effec­tive­ly a con­tract­ing out process. The Mar­itime Union will do what­ev­er it takes to ensure that secure local jobs are pro­tect­ed.”

He says the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand has the sup­port of the New Zealand Coun­cil of Trade Unions and the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion.

Mr Han­son says the Hawke’s Bay Region­al Coun­cil owned Port of Napi­er has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to the local com­mu­ni­ty and should oper­ate in the pub­lic inter­est.

“This port com­pa­ny pro­motes itself as ‘our port’ but they behave as if they have no respon­si­bil­i­ty to the local peo­ple of Hawke’s Bay.”

He says Port of Napi­er man­age­ment have made a bad error of judge­ment that will cause all sorts of prob­lems for the Hawke’s Bay econ­o­my.

“Their actions have led to a sit­u­a­tion where the via­bil­i­ty and suc­cess of the port is put in dan­ger.”

Mr Han­son says the answer to the prob­lem is sim­ple.

“Man­age­ment need to sit down with the Union to find a solu­tion that is mutu­al­ly accept­able, before they cause major harm to the local work­force, their busi­ness and the entire econ­o­my of Hawke’s Bay.”

ENDS

For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, con­tact Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son on 021390585

If this mate­r­i­al  is not rel­e­vant to your pur­pose you may wish to pre­vent fur­ther deliv­er­ies.
If so, please click the URL and fol­low the instruc­tions.

Opt-out page: http://www.mediapeople.co.nz/optout/index.php?optout_code=KyoVDlRKR1FJVQZLQ0dAQlpvXURcSRpaRFAWV0A=