Workers deserve better pay and conditions

The Mar­itime Union of New Zealand says its mem­bers at the Ports of Auck­land earn every cent they are paid for long hours and skilled work in tough and dan­ger­ous con­di­tions.

Work­ers at the Ports of Auck­land are on the sec­ond day of strike action today, pick­et­ing ter­mi­nal gates for improved wages and con­di­tions.

Mar­itime Union Auck­land Water­front Branch Local 13 Pres­i­dent Denis Carlisle says boss­es have resort­ed to “old fash­ioned pro­pa­gan­da” that the work­force had it too good.

“Of course, the peo­ple say­ing this get paid much more than work­ers here or any­where. Let’s ask for an indi­vid­ual break­down of how much senior man­age­ment are being paid at the Ports of Auck­land for a com­par­i­son.”

He says the atti­tude seems to be that CEOs and cor­po­rate man­agers can com­mand vast inflat­ed salaries that bear no rela­tion to their per­for­mance, but work­ers are not enti­tled to a decent wage.

“Every­one seems to be con­cerned that New Zealand is a low wage econ­o­my, so we’re doing our bit to change that.”

Mr Carlisle says work­ers are get­ting fed up with being “thrown crumbs” from employ­ers.

He says that transna­tion­al ship­ping cor­po­ra­tions were extract­ing vast prof­its from New Zealand, and no one ques­tioned that.

Mr Carlisle says a per­ma­nent steve­dore work­ing a 40 hour week earns $52 000 on aver­age in Auck­land.

“Any­thing above this is earned by over­time includ­ing dou­ble shifts (16 hours) worked around the clock, 364 days a year in all weath­er con­di­tions and under heavy time con­straints.”

Mr Carlisle says to give an idea of the work­ing envi­ron­ment was the sit­u­a­tion over Christ­mas Day.

“We’ve man­aged to get a day off for Christ­mas for mem­bers two years ago, but the port com­pa­ny are try­ing to make it a work­ing day again. Fam­i­ly time means noth­ing to them. Our mem­bers will con­tin­ue to assert their rights as human beings and work­ers.”