Workers vindicated as Ports of Auckland abandons automation

The Mar­itime Union says its long­stand­ing oppo­si­tion to automa­tion at the Ports of Auck­land has been vin­di­cat­ed after the project was canned.

Mar­itime Union of New Zealand Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says the deci­sion today by Ports of Auck­land to can­cel its automa­tion project was the right call.

The project suf­fered ongo­ing delays, tech­ni­cal issues and cost over-runs, and had con­tributed to the seri­ous con­ges­tion issues at the Ports in the last two years.

Mr Har­ri­son says the new Board and new CEO have shown a new pos­i­tive atti­tude to engag­ing with the Union, which has led to an improv­ing cul­ture at Ports of Auck­land.

“Our focus now is on ensur­ing a pro­duc­tive, skilled, safe union work­force is allowed to get on with their job.”

Mr Har­ri­son says the Mar­itime Union wants to see work­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the Board to ensure the future suc­cess of the Ports.

“Work­er rep­re­sen­ta­tion at board lev­el would pro­vide the real world exper­tise of work­ers in many areas such as health and safe­ty, and is stan­dard prac­tice in many suc­cess­ful Euro­pean economies.”

Mr Har­ri­son says the automa­tion project is anoth­er neg­a­tive out­come from the reign of for­mer CEO Tony Gib­son, who depart­ed sud­den­ly last year.

The port com­pa­ny and Mr Gib­son are fac­ing health and safe­ty charges laid by Mar­itime New Zealand fol­low­ing the 2020 death of port work­er Pala’amo Kalati.

Mr Har­ri­son says a full report into how poor deci­sions were made by pre­vi­ous man­age­ment was now required.

He says the automa­tion project had been unusu­al and high risk for a port of Auckland’s size, and should nev­er have been approved at the gov­er­nance lev­el.