Ports management and board must account for disruption to Auckland

The Mar­itime Union says Ports of Auck­land must be held account­able for the sig­nif­i­cant dis­rup­tion they are impos­ing on Auck­land.

A Cham­ber of Com­merce sur­vey report­ed today details the effect of the pro­longed employ­ment nego­ti­a­tions on Auck­land busi­ness­es.

Mar­itime Union Gar­ry Parsloe said that the nego­ti­a­tions should have been com­plet­ed months ago.

“The real­i­ty is we have been con­tin­u­al­ly try­ing to sec­ond guess what Port man­age­ment real­ly needs to get this employ­ment agree­ment sort­ed.”

“We have tried sev­er­al times to address ros­ter­ing and util­i­sa­tion issues, and recent­ly tabled fur­ther a com­pre­hen­sive new pro­pos­al.”

“The only response we have ever got is that they want total flex­i­bil­i­ty in the work­place and pro­pos­als that would see wharfies hav­ing no guar­an­teed days off, no pro­tec­tion against casu­al­i­sa­tion and a pack­age that would sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce their pay.”

Gar­ry Parsloe said the prob­lems iden­ti­fied in the Cham­ber sur­vey were in addi­tion to the impact of the dis­pute on work­ers in relat­ed indus­tries like logis­tics and retail, cus­tomers, and res­i­dents of Auck­land who all want this issue resolved.

“The Ports are one of Auckland’s most impor­tant assets, and they need to be run well on behalf of the city’s res­i­dents.”

“As cur­rent guardians of this asset, Ports man­age­ment and gov­er­nance are frankly not up to the job.  They need to be held account­able for the incon­ve­nience and cost to Auck­lan­ders.”

“A com­plete change of cul­ture is need­ed at Ports of Auck­land, and peo­ple brought in who can run this asset prop­er­ly for Auck­land.”

Gar­ry Parsloe said that although Cham­ber of Com­merce head Michael Bar­nett has iden­ti­fied the prob­lem he hasn’t offered any solu­tions.

“Instead of blind­ing sup­port­ing the Port com­pa­ny, why doesn’t he step up and put his ener­gy into actu­al­ly find­ing a solu­tion, to get back the pro­duc­tive work­ing Port we once had before Port lead­er­ship start­ed mis­man­ag­ing it so bad­ly dur­ing these nego­ti­a­tions.”

“Bar­nett rep­re­sents an old fash­ioned response to indus­tri­al rela­tions, and it’s time we had mod­ern employ­er organ­i­sa­tions in New Zealand.”

The par­ties will next week joint­ly seek facil­i­ta­tion from the Employ­ment Rela­tions Author­i­ty, and Gar­ry Parsloe said the Mar­itime Union would be tak­ing all of the facilitator’s rec­om­men­da­tions seri­ous­ly.