Seven day full strike for Ports of Auckland

The Mari­time Uni­on has this after­noon placed a new 7 day full strike notice on the Ports of Auck­land.

Strike action would start 7am on 24 Feb­ru­ary 2012.

This is in addi­tion to a par­tial strike notice that is already in place from 7am on 15 Feb­ru­ary 2012 until 7am on 22 Feb­ru­ary 2012, when work­ers will not work with con­tain­ers moved by out­sourced labour at POAL sub­si­di­ary Con­linxx.

Mari­time Uni­on Nation­al Pres­id­ent Garry Parsloe says the indus­tri­al action is a response to the immin­ent threat to work­ers live­li­hoods.

“The port com­pany is plan­ning to make our mem­bers redund­ant and con­tract out their jobs. This cas­u­al­isa­tion exer­cise is a dir­ect attack on con­di­tions of work and secure, per­man­ent jobs.”

He says the port com­pany man­age­ment did not under­stand the con­sequences of the extreme course of action they have embarked on.

“It is an attack on the port work­force and their fam­il­ies and is bring­ing the future of the Ports of Auck­land into grave danger.”

Mr Parsloe says that if pro­gress is made and man­age­ment return to nego­ti­ations then indus­tri­al action may be recon­sidered.

“These indus­tri­al actions are inten­ded to focus the atten­tion of man­age­ment on the real issues, and the import­ance of secure jobs to our mem­bers.”

Mr Parsloe says a meet­ing of the Auck­land Coun­cil’s Account­ab­il­ity and Per­form­ance Com­mit­tee ques­tioned ACIL Chief Exec­ut­ive Gary Swift this morn­ing and was told by Mr Swift that out­sourcing the work­force at the Ports of Auck­land was a last resort and the pref­er­ence was for a col­lect­ive employ­ment agree­ment to be nego­ti­ated.

The Coun­cil meet­ing this morn­ing received the 2010/2011 annu­al report of Auck­land Coun­cil Invest­ments Lim­ited, the own­ers of Ports of Auck­land.

Mr Parsloe says the report out­lined the prof­it­ab­il­ity and suc­cess of the port.

The annu­al report notes cargo and con­tain­er volumes had achieved record levels, that all time best crane rates for load­ing con­tain­ers had been achieved in what was described in the report as a “great annu­al res­ult” after a “chal­len­ging year”, and ship turn­around times had also reached new record levels of achieve­ment.

Mr Parsloe says the report flatly con­tra­dicts the so-called pro­ductiv­ity crisis that had been man­u­fac­tured by port man­age­ment and pro­moted in the media, dam­aging the ports repu­ta­tion.

He says the res­ults were a cred­it to the work­force who were now under threat of out­sourcing by man­age­ment.