Workers vote no confidence in Ports of Auckland Management and Board

A stop­work meet­ing of Ports of Auck­land work­ers today renewed calls for a change of lead­er­ship at their work­place.

Mar­itime Union mem­bers gath­ered from 7am this morn­ing at Orakei Bowl­ing Club to dis­cuss the find­ings of the recent health and safe­ty report into Ports of Auck­land.

Mar­itime Union Nation­al Sec­re­tary Craig Har­ri­son says the focus of the meet­ing was the death of two work­ers at the Ports since 2018 and how to fix health and safe­ty.

Work­ers at the meet­ing vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly they no longer had trust and con­fi­dence in the exec­u­tive man­age­ment and Board of the Ports of Auck­land.

The Union was also demand­ing that it had union offi­cials rep­re­sent­ed on the Health and Safe­ty, and fatigue risk man­age­ment Com­mit­tees, and a Union rep­re­sen­ta­tive on the Board.

Work­ers had been ignored and their con­cerns side­lined, and there had been ter­ri­ble con­se­quences, says Mr Har­ri­son.

Mr Har­ri­son says POAL Board Chair Bill Osborne was invit­ed to attend via the Ports of Auck­land, but there was no reply to the Union’s invi­ta­tion.

The Mar­itime Union has been proac­tive in con­tact­ing man­age­ment and Board to engage on health and safe­ty, he says.

Mr Har­ri­son says man­age­ment, the Board and the Coun­cil are on notice that this issue was not going away.