Unbroken: Auckland Local 13 and the decade long struggle at Ports of Auckland

By Carl Find­lay
Nation­al Pres­i­dent

A Ports of Auck­land man­ag­er once told me “hope is not a strat­e­gy.” What he didn’t real­ize was “hope is a goal that you col­lec­tive­ly fight to get to.”

1 Decem­ber 2021 marked a sig­nif­i­cant date in the 10-year strug­gle between the Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Auck­land Branch Local 13 and Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment.

For the first time since 2015, union steve­dores at the ter­mi­nal can only be man­dat­ed to work 48 hours in a cal­en­dar week with vol­un­tary over­time, instead of being man­dat­ed to work 60 hours per week.

The strug­gle between Auck­land Local 13 and Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment has ulti­mate­ly been about pow­er and con­trol. 10 years lat­er it is the Mar­itime Union mem­ber­ship that has pre­vailed, and col­lec­tive­ly we are tak­ing back con­trol of our work­ing lives, but at great cost.

In ear­ly 2012 there was approx­i­mate­ly 320 union steve­dores at the ter­mi­nal. After being on strike or locked out for six weeks, thanks to a court order we got back in the gate. Ports of Auck­land man­age­ment then turned the heat up on the union mem­bers by sev­er­al notch­es, talk about intim­i­da­tion and bul­ly­ing. As always in any war there were plen­ty of self­ish, greedy peo­ple who were will­ing, able and in fact enjoyed car­ry­ing out the orders of the new cul­ture in man­age­ment.

They starved Local 13 mem­bers of any over­time, lim­it­ed the num­ber of high­er paid jobs a Local 13 mem­ber could pick up, upskilled any­one who was not a mem­ber of Local 13, but worst of all ignored any health and safe­ty issues as whing­ing or pol­i­tics. I recall one time com­plain­ing to the Gen­er­al Man­ag­er about Local 13 mem­bers treat­ment only to be told that “it was all per­cep­tion!”

A lot of skilled work­ers and good union mem­bers decid­ed they didn’t want to work for a port com­pa­ny that was obvi­ous­ly head­ing in anti-fam­i­ly, moral­ly cor­rupt direc­tion. So, they made the coura­geous call to resign and find an employ­er out­side the red fence that had a moral com­pass and would val­ue their skills.

Oth­ers moved over­seas seek­ing a bet­ter way of life for them­selves and their fam­i­lies, or it was their time to end their work­ing life and retire. What­ev­er the rea­son, skilled mem­bers left in large num­bers and were replaced by a work force that were brain­washed at induc­tion with pro­pa­gan­da by port man­age­ment that Ports of Auck­land was a fun place to work.
The new staff were told not to lis­ten to those Local 13 union wharfies as they were “lazy”, and they did not have the same prin­ci­ples, val­ues and cul­ture as Ports of Auck­land. Damn right Local 13 mem­bers didn’t have the same prin­ci­ples, val­ues and cul­ture of the Board, man­age­ment or the CEO.

The new­bies were encour­aged to embrace Ports of Auck­land prin­ci­ples, val­ues and new com­pa­ny cul­ture that would have a dev­as­tat­ing and last­ing effect on staff, fam­i­lies and indi­vid­u­als and would leave us fight­ing for our jobs thanks to poor board and man­age­ment deci­sions.

Ports of Auck­land work­place deaths, seri­ous injuries and sys­tem­at­ic dis­re­gard for their employee’s health and safe­ty have been well doc­u­ment­ed. Ports of Auck­land have acknowl­edged this by plead­ing guilty and accept­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for two seri­ous injuries and two deaths dur­ing court pro­ceed­ings.

Then there is the dam­age they have done to the share­hold­er who are the rate pay­ers of Auck­land with their failed poli­cies and deci­sions.

The rank and file mem­ber­ship belief in our Union lead­er­ship and our legal team gave our offi­cials the pow­er to con­stant­ly lob­by and push for meet­ings with Auck­land city coun­cil­lors and Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters to get­ting our issues to the top table.

None of this would have been pos­si­ble with­out the Local 13 Rank and File union mem­ber­ship which num­bered approx­i­mate­ly 80 steve­dores and 30 engi­neer­ing staff in 2019.

The Mar­itime Union and the wider union move­ment may have lost the Auck­land ter­mi­nal if not for the deci­sion from our rank and file mem­bers to stay in the strug­gle, sur­vive and fight for their rights at the ter­mi­nal with the upmost dig­ni­ty, courage and self-deter­mi­na­tion.

This is no small achieve­ment. It is a demon­stra­tion of uni­ty and sol­i­dar­i­ty that deserves to be acknowl­edge and is a les­son to all of what can be achieved if you are pre­pared to stick togeth­er and fight back.

So, to the Local 13 ter­mi­nal union mem­bers who stood togeth­er from 2012–2022 we thank and salute you. You’re an inspi­ra­tion to the union move­ment and work­ing-class peo­ple of New Zealand.

Unit­ed We Stand.