Skilled New Zealand workers turned down for jobs at Ports of Auckland

Ports of Auck­land Lim­ited CEO Tony Gib­son has told media that there are no New Zea­l­and work­ers avail­able for key jobs includ­ing crane and straddle drivers.

How­ever the Uni­on has an email from a former POAL employ­ee dated 2 Decem­ber 2020 that turns him down for a job as a straddle driver, and instead offers a role for skilled lash­ing work on a ship (see below.)

The work­er had more than ten years of pre­vi­ous exper­i­ence at the port driv­ing Straddle Car­ri­ers and oth­er Port Machinery, and was one the very oper­at­ors POAL say they are short of and whom would help alle­vi­ate the staff­ing issues.

Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and Nation­al Sec­ret­ary Craig Har­ris­on says any “labour short­age” is being caused by POAL mis­man­age­ment.

He says the com­pany has relied on staff work­ing excess­ive hours, and due to the Uni­on high­light­ing Health and Safety con­cerns, the com­pany has reduced the amount of hours required to be worked in a sev­en day peri­od.

“For sev­er­al years, MUNZ has warned man­age­ment they needed to ensure they had adequate levels of skilled labour in the port but they con­tin­ued to reduce staff­ing levels as part of their failed auto­ma­tion plan”. 

The Port has been well aware of its staff­ing issues as steve­dores were work­ing excess­ive hours last year and lead­ing up to the COVID-19 lock­down earli­er this year, says Mr Har­ris­on.

“Over the past few years our Uni­on has high­lighted the under­u­til­isa­tion of Steve­dores in the vari­ous roles and also the reluct­ance of the Ports of Auck­land to train MUNZ mem­bers into some of the key roles.”

He says the reas­ons for Mr Gib­son say­ing New Zea­l­and work­ers were not avail­able were for him to explain to the share­hold­ers of the port, and those who had been affected by the freight back­log at the Port.

Mr Har­ris­on says the email response to the job applic­ant shows  the Ports of Auck­land is not exhaust­ing all the oppor­tun­it­ies avail­able to them to try and solve the con­ges­tion. 

He says that the POAL Chair­per­son and Board need to take own­er­ship of the prob­lems as the Port’s prob­lems were affect­ing the whole coun­try.   

“Change is required at the top at Ports of Auck­land and the New Year would be a good time to get the port back on track unless Auck­landers want to see these same issues con­tinu­ing on through to the major­ity of next year.”

POAL man­age­ment have giv­en numer­ous dates over the pre­vi­ous years for auto­ma­tion to be up and run­ning and to date they con­tin­ue to fall short, says Mr Har­ris­on.  

LETTER FROM POAL:

Hi,

Thank you for your applic­a­tion for the Steve­dore — Straddle Driver/Reach Stack­er pos­i­tion at Ports of Auck­land.
Unfor­tu­nately at this stage we do not feel your exper­i­ence meets our cri­ter­ia for this pos­i­tion, how­ever we would like to know if you would be inter­ested in being con­sidered for a Lasher pos­i­tion?

A Lasher is respons­ible for secur­ing and releas­ing the equip­ment on board a ship that secures con­tain­ers for safe trans­port­a­tion. This phys­ic­ally demand­ing role involves heavy lift­ing and is abso­lutely key for oper­a­tions.

If yes, please respond to this email by 9am Fri­day 4th Decem­ber stat­ing “Yes I am inter­ested in a Lasher pos­i­tion”.

We thank you again for your interest in work­ing at Ports of Auck­land.

Kind regards,

(Name removed)
Recruit­ment Spe­cial­ist — People & Cap­ab­il­ity

Please note I work Monday, Wed­nes­day & Fri­day