Transport workers mobilize as overseas rolling stock arrives in New Zealand

The New Zea­l­and affil­i­ates of the Inter­na­tion­al Trans­port Work­ers’ Fed­er­a­tion (ITF) met today to dis­cuss their con­cerns with the arrival of KiwiRail’s new loco­mot­ives in the coun­try.

The Chinese made loco­mot­ives will arrive on two dif­fer­ent ships into the Ports of Auck­land over the next 24 hours and be unloaded this week.

New Zea­l­and ITF Con­ven­or and Pres­id­ent of the Mari­time Uni­on Garry Parsloe says New Zea­l­and work­ers are con­cerned and angry that loc­al jobs and industry have been under­mined by send­ing the work over­seas.

“We keep on hear­ing how the coun­try is broke, and we all know how high unem­ploy­ment is, but KiwiRail and the Nation­al Gov­ern­ment are allow­ing work that should be done here in New Zea­l­and to go over­seas, des­troy­ing jobs and tak­ing money out of our com­munit­ies.”

Mr Parsloe says the uni­ons con­demned the out­sourcing of work over­seas when KiwiRail had the abil­ity to man­u­fac­ture in its own work­shops.

New Zea­l­and rail work­ers are rep­res­en­ted by the ITF affil­i­ated Rail and Mari­time Trans­port Uni­on (RMTU).

RMTU Gen­er­al Sec­ret­ary Wayne But­son says that 35 of the new flat top multi func­tion­al wag­ons for KiwiRail have already been made at the Hill­side work­shops in Duned­in, but most had been con­trac­ted to China.

“We have demon­strated our abil­ity and com­pet­ency to build rolling stock here. The only factor at play here is that cheap exploited labour is used in China. Yet the money that could be spent in New Zea­l­and com­munit­ies, boost­ing jobs, skills and the future of industry, is being funneled out of the coun­try.”

“In the con­text of the recent budget, it is clear that this Gov­ern­ment is tak­ing a tun­nel vis­ion approach to lower­ing New Zeal­and’s nation­al debt bur­den. They are happy to see our cur­rent account defi­cit bal­loon out by the cost of these rail pro­jects, at the same time as giv­ing our skilled rail­way trades­per­sons a belief that there is no future for them in New Zea­l­and and they need to join the exodus to Aus­tralia where they will be quickly snatched up.”

The ITF uni­ons will be meet­ing again this week to dis­cuss the way for­ward. ITF affil­i­ates in New Zea­l­and include the Rail and Mari­time Trans­port Uni­on, Mari­time Uni­on of New Zea­l­and, Engin­eer­ing, Print­ing and Man­u­fac­tur­ing Uni­on, Nation­al Dis­tri­bu­tion Uni­on, Mer­chant Ser­vice Guild, and Avi­ation and Mar­ine Engin­eers Asso­ci­ation, rep­res­ent­ing tens of thou­sands of New Zea­l­and trans­port work­ers.

The ITF is made up of 681 uni­ons rep­res­ent­ing 4,500,000 trans­port work­ers in 148 coun­tries. It is one of sev­er­al Glob­al Uni­on Fed­er­a­tions allied with the Inter­na­tion­al Trade Uni­on Con­fed­er­a­tion (ITUC).