Ports of Auckland management COVID-19 story “embarrassing” 

Claims by Ports of Auck­land that Gov­ern­ment quar­ant­ine reg­u­la­tions are to blame for their fail­ures are embar­rass­ing and should be with­drawn.

A POAL spokes­per­son com­plained on Mike Hosk­ing’s Break­fast Radio show yes­ter­day about a “maze like pro­cess” to import crane oper­at­ors.

The spokes­per­son said “We have to fill out heaps of forms and wait weeks, and it would be great if someone could help speed up everything.”

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says the prob­lem is POAL man­age­ment.

He says the short­age of crane oper­at­ors in Auck­land came about because the port com­pany has not trained enough staff over the last couple of years and has relied on work­ers doing excess­ive hours.

“If they had main­tained their work­force, they would­n’t have a prob­lem. No oth­er Port is in this ridicu­lous situ­ation they have got Auck­land into.

The Uni­on believes there could be up to 19 cur­rent employ­ees at the Ports of Auck­land who have pre­vi­ously driv­en the con­tain­er cranes at the Ports of Auck­land who are cur­rently car­ry­ing super­vis­ory roles with­in the com­pany who could be redeployed into the role.

Mr Har­ris­on says he believes there were options to trans­fer work­ers in from oth­er ports tem­por­ar­ily, and the Uni­on had pre­vi­ously assisted with this pro­cess in the past.

He says past employ­ees of the Ports of Auck­land are being declined employ­ment as steve­dores even though they oper­ated machinery still in use.

It was dis­turb­ing the Port Com­pany seemed to be bring­ing into ques­tion the strict quar­ant­ine pro­ced­ures that were keep­ing New Zeal­anders safe as COVID-19 rav­aged the rest of the world, he says.

The port man­age­ment is focused on an auto­ma­tion pro­cess that had dragged on for years and is still not work­ing, he says.

“Port man­age­ment need to be hon­est with New Zea­l­and about wheth­er they have exhausted all options avail­able to the com­pany with­in New Zea­l­and.”


Com­pany email to job applic­ant with 10 plus years pre­vi­ous exper­i­ence as a straddle driver at the Ports of Auck­land
 
Thanks again for your applic­a­tion with Ports of Auck­land.

While you have pre­vi­ously worked at the Ports, it was some time ago and we are there­fore unable to pro­gress with your applic­a­tion.  You would require full train­ing again and the cur­rent busi­ness decision is that due to the high interest in these vacan­cies, we are only provid­ing our cur­rent POAL staff with full train­ing and pro­gress­ing with extern­al applic­ants who only require refresh­er train­ing.

We wish you all the best in your job search.

Kind regards

XXXXXXXX

POAL Recruit­ment