Ports of Auckland management bear responsibility for port dispute

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Pres­i­dent Gar­ry Parsloe says man­age­ment have failed to suc­cess­ful­ly nego­ti­ate with their employ­ees and had no one to blame but them­selves for the sit­u­a­tion at the Port.

“After a week of inflam­ma­to­ry claims and pub­lic attacks on the integri­ty of his employ­ees, Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed CEO Tony Gib­son can boast of one accom­plish­ment only — alien­at­ing his work­force.”

He says that port work­ers being locked out by POAL man­age­ment would be los­ing pay, but Local 13 MUNZ mem­bers under­stood the long term impor­tance of main­tain­ing terms and con­di­tions at the Port.

The three-year Col­lec­tive Agree­ment between the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Local 13 and the Ports of Auck­land Lim­it­ed (POAL) expired on 30 Sep­tem­ber 2011.

Mr Parsloe says there are sev­er­al sub­stan­tial issues around terms and con­di­tions which are behind the dis­pute, which had been con­cealed by Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment.

“If man­age­ment were seri­ous about solv­ing the dis­pute, they’d be address­ing the issues instead of grand­stand­ing in the media.”

One major point of con­tention was ongo­ing attempts by man­age­ment to con­tract out the jobs of port work­ers, he says.

Dur­ing the sec­ond year of the agree­ment (2010), the Port Com­pa­ny attempt­ed to con­tract out ITF affil­i­at­ed Dock­ers employ­ment in the lash, strad­dle dri­ving and con­tain­er crane oper­a­tions.

In August and Sep­tem­ber of 2010 the Port Com­pa­ny issued redun­dan­cy notices to MUNZ mem­bers work­ing in the shut­tle oper­a­tion. Shut­tles are trail­er units that move con­tain­ers between Fer­gus­son and Bledis­loe con­tain­er ter­mi­nals. It should be not­ed that the shut­tle oper­a­tion is car­ried out with­in the con­fines of the port area, wharf to wharf.

POAL con­tract­ed out the shut­tle oper­a­tion to a Com­pa­ny called Con­linxx which is a sub­sidiary joint ven­ture between the POAL and NZL of which the Port Com­pa­ny owns 90% of the shares. Port Com­pa­ny employ­ees also act as direc­tors on the Con­linxx Board of Direc­tors.

The Con­linxx oper­a­tion is pre­dom­i­nate­ly a non-union oper­a­tion which includes a high pro­por­tion of own­er dri­vers.

The Port Com­pa­ny sold three of its trail­er units and fol­low­ing an inter­im agree­ment with the Union the remain­ing two units were to be worked by MUNZ mem­bers. What unfold­ed was at best, a spas­mod­ic oper­a­tion of Union dri­ven trail­er units on a Mon­day to Fri­day basis of 1st shift only.

In talks to renew the Col­lec­tive Agree­ment the Port Com­pa­ny has defin­i­tive­ly stat­ed that the con­tract­ed shut­tle oper­a­tion will remain despite the Union claim for this worked to be returned to union mem­bers.

As the Col­lec­tive Agree­ment had expired the Union was in a posi­tion to take indus­tri­al action to sup­port its claim for the return of the shut­tle work.

At a stop­work meet­ing, rank and file mem­ber­ship unan­i­mous­ly instruct­ed the Local 13 Offi­cials to issue the Port Com­pa­ny with a two day strike notice to sup­port their claim.

The Port Com­pa­ny respond­ed by issu­ing a Lock­out notice for two days in retal­i­a­tion.

The sec­ond main area of the dis­pute was bad faith by the man­age­ment who were offer­ing high­er hourly rates to work­ers on Indi­vid­ual Employ­ment Agree­ments.

Man­age­ment has jus­ti­fied its actions for a high­er hourly rate by say­ing the rate in the Indi­vid­ual Agree­ments is a ‘Total Remu­ner­a­tion Pack­age’ that effec­tive­ly cash­es up super­an­nu­a­tion, meal monies and health insur­ance.

These con­di­tions are con­di­tions that have been won by the Union in pre­vi­ous strug­gles.

Local 13 is chal­leng­ing the com­pa­ny on Good Faith bar­gain­ing, as the offer of a high­er hourly rate under­mines the Col­lec­tive Agree­ment and the bar­gain­ing process.

“In recent weeks the Port Com­pa­ny has made much to do about their Com­pa­ny val­ues, so the Union fails to see how an employ­er who offers a mon­e­tary incen­tive to leave the Union at the expense of a retire­ment plan can mas­quer­ade as a car­ing employ­er.”

The cash­ing up of super­an­nu­a­tion enti­tle­ments along with oth­er con­di­tions is a sin­is­ter attempt to influ­ence work­ers and estab­lish vul­ner­a­ble depen­dent employ­ees in the work­place, says Mr Parsloe.

Mr Parsloe says the efforts were a trans­par­ent attempt to deu­nion­ize the work­force, with the inten­tion of even­tu­al­ly tear­ing down hard won terms and con­di­tions of employ­ment.

He says at the end of the day the major­i­ty of work­ers in the Ports of Auck­land chose to be mem­bers of the Mar­itime Union.

“Every time Mr Gib­son opens his mouth and abus­es the Union, he is abus­ing his work­force, the same work­force that deliv­ered high
pro­duc­tiv­i­ty in a round the clock indus­tri­al envi­ron­ment at the Ports of Auck­land.”

“This CEO claims to respect his work­force but has spent the last week attack­ing their integri­ty in the news media.”

“He says he is con­cerned about the effect of stop­pages on cus­tomers before Christ­mas, then pro­ceeds to lock out the work­force for two days.”

“He says he wants a res­o­lu­tion but con­tin­ues to engage in bad faith actions.”

In short, what the Union wants is sim­ply to main­tain hard won terms and con­di­tions, and a union­ized work­force.

The agen­da of the POAL man­age­ment con­tin­ues to be one of rad­i­cal under­min­ing of terms and con­di­tions through clear­ly anti-union mea­sures such as con­tract­ing out and offer­ing pref­er­en­tial treat­ment to some employ­ees.

The Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment lock out of work­ers com­mences 12.01am Sat­ur­day 3 Decem­ber and con­cludes 10.30 pm on Sun­day 4 Decem­ber 2011.

The first strike peri­od is from 10.30 pm on Thurs­day 1 Decem­ber 2011 until 10.30 pm on Fri­day 2 Decem­ber 2011, then from 10.30 pm on Sun­day 4 Decem­ber 2011 until 10.30 pm on Mon­day 5 Decem­ber 2011.

The sec­ond strike is for the peri­od com­menc­ing 10.30 pm on Thurs­day 8 Decem­ber 2011 until 10.30 pm Sat­ur­day 10 Decem­ber 2011.

Ports of Auckland’s sec­ond lock­out is for the 48 hours imme­di­ate­ly fol­low­ing and will extend the stop­page until 10.30 pm Mon­day 12 Decem­ber 2011.