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:: Ports of Auckland Dispute - 19 January
2011 |
Ports of Auckland Dispute
Over 300 workers at the Ports of Auckland and their families are
facing an uncertain future.
Their livelihoods are under threat.
Their employer has threatened to sack them unless their union
accepts every one of the employer demands in collective bargaining
negotiations.
That’s not negotiation. It is intimidation and bullying. Worse
still, it’s being done by a company that is owned by the people of
Auckland.
These employer demands would mean workers having no security with
their rostered shifts.
That means not knowing whether you’ll be sent home after three
hours or told to work a 12-hour shift. Or not having any work at
all.
That’s not flexibility. That’s ruining a worker’s family life for
an irresponsible business model that won’t deliver for Auckland.
Ports of Auckland (POAL) management want to contract out port
workers jobs and create a totally casualised workforce.
Casualisation is harming New Zealand. Employers demand workers to
be on standby, on call, working a few hours here or there. Even
where there is already a lot of flexibility, workers are expected to
give up any hope of a structured and healthy life.
At the heart of the dispute between the Maritime Union and the
Ports of Auckland management is a fundamental issue: whether you as
a worker should know what hours you will be working from one day to
the next.
The current collective employment agreement at Ports of Auckland
allows for flexibility. Up to a quarter of the current workforce can
be employed on a casual basis and another quarter as permanent
part-time workers.
The Maritime Union agreed to more flexibility and to an ongoing
productivity improvement process. Workers are seeking only a modest
2.5% pay increase. At present the base rate of pay for a stevedore
is $27 an hour or around $56,000 for those on a 40-hour week. Ports
of Auckland have shifts over a 24 hour period, 365 days a year.
In September 2011 Ports of Auckland congratulated its workers for
achieving the “best ever” crane moves per hour on the port for the
previous month.
But the employer walked away from mediation – and CEO Tony Gibson
plans to sack these workers and contract out their jobs.
This is not only distressing for the workers and their families
but it is damaging to the Port, which is owned by the people of
Auckland.
There is an agenda being promoted to sell the port off or
contract out port work and leave the Council simply owning the land.
A Government Commission has just published an unfinished report
that calls for the ports to be privatised and de-unionised. This is
not a coincidence.
Ports of Auckland belongs to the people of Auckland. It must
remain a public asset that benefits all of us and treats its workers
with fairness and respect.
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