Maritime Union of New Zealand

The Maritime Union says it intends to make sure a Government inquiry into transport and logistics is not just about promoting privatization in the ports sector.

Maritime Union of New Zealand General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says the Union will be taking an active and critical approach in its contributions to the Productivity Commission’s inquiry into International Freight Transport Services.

“We won’t be accepting any status quo thinking and ‘free market is best’ assumptions that sometimes accompanies these reports.”

Key issues for the Union include keeping control of New Zealand ports in New Zealand hands.

Mr Fleetwood says any move to privatize ports would quickly result in the control of New Zealand’s logistics infrastructure passing to GNT (global network terminal) operators and shippers, who would operate the system for their own benefit, not New Zealand’s benefit.

He says many problems with New Zealand ports currently come from lack of planning and co-ordination, not through lack of competition.

“The Maritime Union is proposing a KiwiPort concept where port ownership remains in community control but national co-ordination is used to minimize disruption and end the duplication of infrastructure we currently see.”

The Maritime Union had been arguing for years that secure permanent jobs, a career path for young people entering the industry, and world leading health and safety had to underpin any productivity gains.

“There is no point expecting productivity from casualized workers who are not properly trained and for whom there is no career path. But this is the approach of many employers in the industry.”

“We will be making sure that productivity is not just an accounting term for employer profit, but refers to the wellbeing of workers in the industry.”

He says the Union questions some of the assumptions suggested by the Productivity Commission, including a concept of competition as an intrinsic good.

“In the maritime industry, competition has driven corner cutting on health and safety which has led to deaths and injuries, downwards pressure on wages and conditions resulting in casualization, and a lack of national co-ordination in the port sector.”

“We are looking at the real world situation, not an economics textbook. We are the people who are out there being productive around the clock and we expect our voices to carry some weight.”

The Maritime Union is also promoting a much greater role for coastal shipping as an important part of the low-impact, environmentally sustainable transport mix of the 21st century.

Coastal shipping and regional ports also provide an important security and civil defence function, as had been seen during the Christchurch Earthquake disaster, when ports provided the main emergency logistics link for relief supplies.

New Zealand maritime workers will be going up the gangway this week to check out ships flying “flags of convenience” and ensure that crew conditions, wages, and health and safety standards are up to scratch.

The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) is holding its New Zealand Flag of Convenience Week of Action this week, ending Friday 3 June 2011.

Members of the ITF-affiliated Maritime Union of New Zealand will board vessels in New Zealand’s main ports, and go over documentation such as wage books, talk to crews, and inspect the seaworthiness and safety of ships.

Maritime Union of New Zealand General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says this is part of an ongoing international campaign to improve standards in the shipping industry.

He says that there have been a number of serious incidents on overseas vessels, including FOC vessels, in New Zealand ports and in and around New Zealand waters in recent years.

“We have had ongoing incidents ranging from underpayment of wages, failure for crews to be returned home at the end of their contracts, mistreatment and abuse, all the way up to serious injuries and deaths, and the sinking of vessels.”

Flag of Convenience (FOC) vessels are registered in countries with very lax or non-existent regulation of the maritime industry.

FOCs provide a means of avoiding labour regulation in the country of ownership, and become a vehicle for paying low wages and forcing long hours of work and unsafe working conditions.

ITF New Zealand inspector Grahame MacLaren says the week of action is intended to convey a clear message to Flag of Convenience operators who trade in New Zealand waters that they need to abide to basic ITF standards.

“The main focus will be to target FOC vessels without ITF agreements for the crew, but any other foreign flagged vessels will come under scrutiny.”

The ITF is made up of 681 unions representing 4,500,000 transport workers in 148 countries. It is one of several Global Union Federations allied with the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC).

The rundown of New Zealand coastal shipping is threatening New Zealand’s capability to deal with the social and economic fallout from natural disasters.

A massive slip near Kaikoura has blocked the main road and rail link from north to south for the last couple of days and it is not known for certain how long it will take to clear and repair.

The cause of the slip is possibly related to the recent Christchurch earthquake, or heavy rain, but regardless of the cause, it is creating extra problems for transport and logistics in the badly disrupted South Island at a crucial time. Heavy trucks are diverted through the Lewis Pass, hundreds of kilometers off their normal route.

KiwiRail is now considering shipping freight to South Island ports other than Picton, to reach Christchurch faster.

Maritime Union General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says the neglect of coastal shipping has led to a “blind spot” in New Zealand’s transport mix.

“We’re an island nation dependent on shipping that has allowed its own shipping capability to vanish due to bad policies, and we are seeing now why this is a bad idea.”

He says the Maritime Union has argued for many years that over reliance on land transport and especially trucking was short-sighted.

“Unfortunately we have had little progress and the current Government is only interested in heavy trucking. We no longer have the coastal shipping capability to deal with the problem.”

Due to New Zealand’s geography, reliance on land based transport modes running down narrow and easily disrupted transport corridors was a dangerous weakness.

The Christchurch – Picton road and rail link was the only convenient land route from North Island to the majority of the South Island’s cities and economic hubs.

Mr Fleetwood says if there was a fleet of New Zealand vessels available, they would be able to quickly respond to such a situation if required, either for emergency relief or simply to ensure the supply chain was not broken. There are only a very small number of New Zealand freight vessels working on the coastal trade.

Most coastal cargo is now dominated by overseas vessels which work to tight fixed international schedules based on the interests of their owners, rather than any local concerns.

Mr Fleetwood says that the concerns about a Wellington earthquake were still extremely valid.

“If we look at New Zealand’s capital, it is totally dependent on a couple of access routes, and if these were blocked, shipping might provide the only lifeline.”

The Maritime Union was calling on the Government to remove policies which disadvantaged New Zealand shipping and included the “blue highway” as a key element of the transport mix.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand says it warned for years that opening New Zealand coastal and trans-Tasman shipping to international carriers would create biosecurity risks from exotic pests.

Now the Union says it has sadly been proved correct.

Maritime Union Auckland Branch Local 13 President Garry Parsloe says the orange-spotted hadda beetle arrived via the Ports of Auckland and is the latest in a long list of pests to become established in New Zealand through ports.

MAF have decided it would be too costly to eradicate the bug which devastates crops such as eggplant, tomatoes and potatoes overseas, and which is reported to be likely to cost the horticulture industry $100 million over the next 20 years.

Mr Parsloe says that before 1994 large amounts of our shipping was New Zealand based, which limited entry points to many exotic pests.

However since the previous National Government opened coastal shipping to overseas in 1994, the large number of international vessels carrying cargo between New Zealand ports has increased the risk.

Mr Parsloe says the trans-Tasman trade once had many New Zealand vessels working on it, now it has none.

He says the Maritime Union, and prior to 2002 the New Zealand Seafarers Union, campaigned long and hard to keep coastal shipping and trans-Tasman shipping reserved for local vessels.

The Union supports cabotage, a widely used system which gives local carriers priority to carry cargo between domestic ports.

“The reasons for our strong and ongoing opposition to the so-called open coast policy is not just that global shippers carry New Zealand goods within New Zealand waters and pay no tax, but also because of the extra risk to biosecurity.”

A few bugs coming in on an international vessel can add up to tens of millions of dollars of damage.

“The leave it to the market mindset of the open coast policy has come back and literally bitten New Zealand on the bum.”

“We have opened our coast up not only to global shipping companies but to all sorts of pests which have quickly become established onshore, threatening our key industries and even health.”

He says that it was promised that biosecurity measures would take care of exotic pests from international vessels, but that has not been successful.

Mr Parsloe says it is not too late to put back New Zealand ships on the coastal trade and substantially reduce the biosecurity risk.

He hoped the horticulture and agriculture industries would support such a move as it would be in their best interests.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand is supporting the Corrections Association in their protest today against prison privatization at the opening of Parliament.

Maritime Union of New Zealand General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says the safety and security of workers comes before cost cutting measures, and the Government has lost the plot in its prisons policies.

The Union has spoken out against the use of shipping containers as makeshift jail cells.

Mr Fleetwood says that the Maritime Union is incensed that the only “maritime policy” the Government seems to have is using containers for jails.

“With tens of thousands of young New Zealanders joining the ranks of the unemployed, this Government is doing nothing to support New Zealand shipping and getting young people good careers in coastal shipping moving New Zealand goods in containers.”

“Instead young people from deprived backgrounds will languish on the dole and slip into anti-social activities – and end up inside shipping containers. The National Government should be ashamed of itself.”

Mr Fleetwood says areas such as prisons should never been privatized and used as profit making machines.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand says that New Zealand’s overseas trade could be in jeopardy unless the Government has a plan for ports and the maritime sector.

Maritime Union General Secretary Joe Fleetwood, responding to comments from the Minister of Transport Hon. Stephen Joyce, says it is not good enough for the Government to leave it to chance when 99% of New Zealand’s imports and exports are shipped.

He says that there is widespread concern in the industry that in future cargo could be hubbed through a large Australian port, with complex and negative effects for New Zealand.

“This decision would be made by global shipping lines, whose interest is their own profit, not New Zealand’s long term economic security.”

Mr Fleetwood says that an October 2009 report from Auckland Regional Holdings, the business arm of Auckland Regional Council (ARC), had noted the risk that, over time, New Zealand containers would be hubbed through Australia.

Further comments last week from retiring Pacifica Shipping CEO Rod Grout backed up the view the current hands-off approach could end with New Zealand cargo being hubbed through Sydney or Melbourne.

Mr Fleetwood says the views of the maritime industry appear to be falling on deaf ears.

He says an example of potential problems could be seen with what had happened when Fonterra had changed its transport mode in South Canterbury with no warning from the Port of Timaru to long distance rail.

This had led to severe pressure on the port, and was just one of a number of examples where ports had risked major investments in infrastructure to build capacity, only to be left in the lurch by global shipping companies.

“This situation if repeated on a larger scale through hubbing to Australia due to decisions of shipping companies could result in huge disruption to regional economies, millions of dollars of infrastructure being mothballed, and our transport chain in chaos.”

Mr Fleetwood says Mr Joyce’s claim that changes in the port sector would occur naturally over time showed the Government did not grasp the implications of recent developments.

He says the Maritime Union wants a long term national strategy to ensure any rationalization of ports is achieved through a planned and non-destructive process.

Ports should be integrated through a “KiwiPort” system and coastal shipping had to receive the same support that road and rail did to create a effective, New Zealand-controlled transport system.