Secure jobs safe after Port of Napier resolution

Mar­itime work­ers are cel­e­brat­ing tonight after a suc­cess­ful res­o­lu­tion of the Port of Napi­er dis­pute in medi­a­tion this after­noon.

Mar­itime Union Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Trevor Han­son says the week long dis­pute had been about secure local jobs being pre­served at the port.

“We want­ed ship­ping com­pa­nies to be able to use steve­dores where secure local jobs could be achieved. Ship­ping com­pa­nies want­ed a solu­tion, we sup­plied one, and the port is back in action as of now.”

Mr Han­son says offi­cials went down to the pick­et line this after­noon to break the good news short­ly before 3pm.

“We’ve had our mem­bers out on the port gates for near­ly a week, and today there was a great sense of relief that these work­ers will have work tomor­row and into the future.”

Mr Han­son says the pick­et will be tak­en off the gates imme­di­ate­ly, and work­ers will be work­ing around the clock over the week­end to clear the back­log of work before Christ­mas.

“The port was effec­tive­ly shut down dur­ing this dis­pute and now it will be back to busi­ness as usu­al.”

Mr Han­son says the dis­pute had been unnec­es­sary, and had caused dam­age to the rep­u­ta­tion of the port, but the Union would seek to ensure a suc­cess­ful year in 2008 as long as secure jobs were avail­able to local peo­ple.

He says the defin­ing moments of the dis­pute were the tenac­i­ty of the local work­ers who manned 24 hour pick­ets on the port gates, the sup­port of oth­er unions and the CTU, and the mas­sive glob­al sup­port from the inter­na­tion­al work­ing class includ­ing the Mar­itime Union of Aus­tralia and the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers Fed­er­a­tion.