Ports of Auckland fined $40,000 for illegal actions against its workforce

The Employ­ment Rela­tions Author­ity has fined the Ports of Auck­land $40,000 for illeg­ally employ­ing strike break­ing con­tract­ors dur­ing indus­tri­al action at the Port earli­er this year.

Ports of Auck­land Lim­ited (POAL) broke the law when they employed an over­seas engin­eer at the cost of $10,000 a week to under­take the work of MUNZ mem­bers.

In addi­tion, loc­al con­tract­ors were illeg­ally used to carry out engin­eer­ing work at the Port.

At the time when the mul­tiple breaches of the Employ­ment Rela­tions Act took place in Feb­ru­ary and March 2012, MUNZ mem­bers were on strike and locked out in their battle to stop man­age­ment con­tract­ing out their jobs.

In her decision released yes­ter­day, Employ­ment Rela­tions Author­ity Mem­ber Anna Fitz­gib­bon said “It is my view that POAL was aware of s97 [edit­or­i­al note: Sec­tion 97 of the Employ­ment Rela­tions Act regard­ing the Per­form­ance of duties of strik­ing or locked out work­ers] but in order to keep the port oper­at­ing dur­ing the strike, made cal­cu­lated decisions to breach the pro­vi­sion.”

In decid­ing the breach of the Act was delib­er­ate and ser­i­ous, she imposed pen­al­ties totalling $40,000 against POAL.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Pres­id­ent Garry Parsloe says the ERA decision places POAL man­age­ment in an unten­able pos­i­tion.

“Instead of focus­sing on set­tling a fair col­lect­ive agree­ment, the Port embarked on an unprin­cipled plan to sack their entire steve­doring work­force and replace them with con­trac­ted labour.”

He says that now in addi­tion to all the costs of the dis­pute, Auck­land rate­pay­ers are con­tinu­ing to pay for POAL man­age­ment’s delib­er­ately unlaw­ful actions.

“Ulti­mately the costs of POAL’s actions impact on the return to the people of Auck­land.”

Mr Parsloe says this week at the Auck­land Coun­cil Account­ab­il­ity and Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee, the so-called Coun­cil Con­trolled Organ­isa­tion Auck­land Coun­cil Invest­ments Ltd (ACIL) indic­ated that they were not respons­ible for mon­it­or­ing the costs of the dis­pute.

“Someone must hold POAL to account for the costs of this dis­pute. Who is respons­ible?”

Des­pite con­tinu­al leg­al find­ings against them, POAL man­age­ment are con­tinu­ing (with the sup­port of the Board) to try to remove employ­ment secur­ity from port work­ers, includ­ing by demand­ing a col­lect­ive agree­ment that removes all cer­tainty of ros­ter­ing and even the cur­rent guar­an­tee of every third week­end off.

This dis­pute has gone on for too long and has cost too much it is time for POAL to settle a fair and bal­anced col­lect­ive agree­ment with us, says Mr Parsloe.

He says MUNZ mem­bers at the Port simply want to have an agree­ment that provides job secur­ity, not sign an agree­ment that allows their jobs to be con­trac­ted out.

“We need an agree­ment that provides increased flex­ib­il­ity while provid­ing secur­ity and cer­tainty to our mem­bers to enable them to have time with their fam­ily and to work in a safe man­ner. It is time for the mad­ness to stop and for the Port to be run by a man­age­ment that val­ues its work­force. Heads must roll – delib­er­ate illeg­al actions by man­age­ment com­pel a firm response from the Board and from the Coun­cil.”

ERA Determ­in­a­tion 12 Decem­ber 2012