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.