Ports of Auckland CEO payout “unreal”

The Mari­time Uni­on has described a massive pay­out to the former CEO of Ports of Auck­land as “unreal” and an insult to port work­ers, Auck­land rate­pay­ers, and the fam­il­ies of those who have died at Ports of Auck­land.

Tony Gib­son resigned from his pos­i­tion as CEO at POAL in June 2021, fol­low­ing sev­er­al deaths at POAL, poor fin­an­cial per­form­ance, and an auto­ma­tion pro­ject that has run years late.

An inde­pend­ent report released earli­er this year into health and safety at POAL iden­ti­fied sys­tem­ic prob­lems, and Port man­age­ment faced heavy cri­ti­cism from the port’s own­ers Auck­land Coun­cil, and the Gov­ern­ment.

The POAL annu­al report shows an unnamed top earn­ing exec­ut­ive was paid between $1.78m and $1.79m in the year to June 30.

In the pre­vi­ous fin­an­cial year he was paid $820,000.

The Ports of Auck­land Lim­ited and Tony Gib­son are now both facing charges under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 filed by Gov­ern­ment agency Mari­time New Zea­l­and fol­low­ing the death of a steve­dore in August 2020.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the pay­out is incred­ible in the cir­cum­stances.

Mr Har­ris­on says the “mil­lion dol­lar ques­tion” is how this was an appro­pri­ate decision.

“This is rate­pay­ers money that has been handed to someone who is about to appear in Court on health and safety charges around the death of a work­er.”

He says the pay­out shows a cor­por­ate cul­ture of impun­ity where seni­or man­agers are handed unreal amounts of cash even when they have failed in their roles.

Mr Har­ris­on says work­ers who make one off errors at work often face the loss of their job and severe hard­ship, not mil­lion dol­lar golden para­chutes.

He says many New Zeal­anders are grow­ing angry at double stand­ards.

Mr Har­ris­on says the Uni­on is com­mit­ted to a con­struct­ive rela­tion­ship with new port man­age­ment if they respec­ted their work­force.