Maritime Union of New Zealand

The Ports of Auckland has confirmed that it is proceeding with a plan to sack its stevedoring workforce.

Maritime Union National President Garry Parsloe says the union met with management this morning to find out the details of a management scheme to outsource jobs.

Mr Parsloe says the union attended the meeting to find out what the company plan was, and to receive information that would be taken back to the membership for discussion.

“The position of the Maritime Union and our members at Ports of Auckland remains clear. We will not accept this attack on workers and their basic rights of employment through contracting out aimed at undermining job security.”

Mr Parsloe says there was still a window for a negotiated solution, and nothing had been finalized.

“We think management need to change tack pretty quickly, because where they are heading could have very bad consequences for the port.”

He says their decisions brought into question their judgement, their motives and gave a sense there is another agenda here that the people of Auckland who own the port have not been told about.

Strong statements of support for port workers had been received from the Council of Trade Unions and affiliated unions, the International Transport Workers Federation, political organizations and representatives, and individual members of the community.

“People understand this how contracting out action would lead to a casualized workforce in one of Auckland’s key assets, and is being used as part of a broader port privatization grab.”

Maritime Union of New Zealand National President Garry Parsloe says a major stumbling block in the current industrial dispute at Ports of Auckland is the contracting out of work covered in a signed collective employment agreement between the parties.

He says the Union is prepared to lift its strike notice in the new year, but needed an indication of good faith from management.

“We can work with the company to sort out a timeline on outstanding issues, but we need to see that the company is not just pursuing an exercise to casualize the entire workforce, which they have been threatening.”

Mr Parsloe says if Ports of Auckland management want to make a genuine show of good faith, they could make progress by ensuring the existing shuttles that move containers within the port are manned 24/7 by skilled workers trained to operate them.

In the event of undercapacity, Mr Parsloe says the Union is prepared to negotiate in good faith to resolve any issues within an agreed time frame.

Industrial action could be lifted as long as management negotiated outstanding issues in good faith.

“During the term of the previous agreement, Ports of Auckland management contracted out the shuttle work to a company called Conlinxx, which they are the main owners of.”

He says the ownership structure of the Conlinxx service showed the contracting out exercise was clearly aimed at undermining terms and conditions within the signed collective agreement between the parties.

The Maritime Union tried to resolve this issue with past and present management during the term of the agreement, but the contracting out had led to a dispute over the protection of workers livelihoods and their families futures

Mr Parsloe says many New Zealand workers had experienced the bad results of contracting out and casualization, which had decimated wages and conditions and made working life harder for many people in this country.

“Casualization and contracting out isn’t about productivity in our view, it is about taking advantage of workers by driving down their wages and conditions.”

The Maritime Union says the dispute at Ports of Auckland is about workers maintaining a family life outside work.

Maritime Union National President Garry Parsloe says members will be meeting tomorrow at a special meeting that will also bring together family members.

Maritime Union members at the Ports of Auckland are taking industrial action on 23 December and Christmas Day, 25 December.

He says there are several key issues that have consistently been misrepresented by Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson in his attacks on his workforce, including the fact that workers had turned down pay increases.

“The dispute is not about money. It is about ensuring secure jobs, decent hours and conditions for workers.”

“The idea that maintaining a family life is somehow up for sale is repugnant. This sinister idea that you can just wave around some cash in people’s faces and tell them to give up more time with their family when they already work long and unsocial hours.”

Mr Parsloe says proposed “flexibility” means that workers will be on call for round the clock shift work and lose any semblance of job security through outsourcing and casualization in the future.

“How can you have any balance here between working life and family commitments?”

He says that the pressure put on families was already severe.

Mr Parsloe says it should be noted that Maritime Union members at Ports of Auckland, and in other areas of the maritime industry, work on public holidays.

“Our members work in 24/7 industry where unsocial hours, long shifts and hard work in an unforgiving heavy industrial environment are the norm. Add to this the issue of two income families with both parents in the same situation and it is really a shameful reflection on the dark ages attitudes and values of corporate managers.”

Mr Parsloe says it should be noted the upcoming industrial action was taking place during a time of year the majority of New Zealand managers and workers were on holiday with their families.

“Our members already work over this period, yet the employer always wants more.”

Mr Parsloe says this brought another issue to light, that Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson had repeatedly put around information about wages and hours of work that were inaccurate and had caused a massive backlash amongst his own workforce who saw it as an indication their employer did not value their productivity.

“The simple fact that any Ports of Auckland worker earning the amounts stated by Mr Gibson would have to be doing hundreds of hours of overtime a year, over long shifts, round the clock, public holidays and weekends, in highly skilled and responsible roles.”

“Our members see Mr Gibson throwing around these inaccurate figures in public, yet he has refused to release his own salary and perks, alongside that of his senior managers, to the public. This arrogance has unsurprisingly resulted in a breakdown of the relationship with his own workforce.”

Mr Parsloe says it should be remembered that Ports of Auckland workers had a high level of responsibility operating heavy machinery in what was still one of the more dangerous industries.

The Maritime Union has put in a further 48-hour strike notice at Ports of Auckland from 7am on Friday 30 December until 7 am Sunday 1 January 2012.

Maritime Union National President Garry Parsloe says the strike notice is a legal requirement and can be withdrawn as soon as any progress is made with Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson.

“The answer is in Mr Gibson’s hands. He can stop trying to attack the union and the majority of his own workforce and start dealing with the real issues. It’s simply a case of trying to get him back on track.”

Mr Parsloe says the issue is not and has never been about wage increases.

What the Maritime Union and its members are concerned about is protecting the conditions of employment, secure jobs, and ensuring a strong collective agreement, he says.

“The position of the CEO has no credibility. First of all he tries to offer non union workers a much greater wage increase than members of the union in a blatant attempt to undermine the collective agreement. Then he waves money around when this inconvenient fact is pointed out to him. But it has nothing to do with the real issues at hand.”

Mr Gibson’s statements about flexibility while simultaneously claiming that he intended respecting employees’ preferences about when they work were hollow, says Mr Parsloe.

“You don’t respect something by undermining it. The flexibility Mr Gibson describes means workers give up their family time, personal life and normal existence to be called into work whenever the employer wants. That’s the flexibility he means, in a nutshell.”

Mr Parsloe says Mr Gibson seems to think family time or regular hours and secure jobs are “restrictive and old fashioned”.

“It is this attitude of regarding the wellbeing of his employees as an impediment to raking in even more profit that is causing so many problems in these negotiations.”

Mr Parsloe says the POAL agenda is also reflected in continued letters from Mr Gibson to members homes that have created stress and concern for family members by threatening contracting out of work at the port.

He says there is an agenda of outsourcing and casualization behind Ports of Auckland management’s approach and that until Mr Gibson starts to negotiate on a more sensible basis, the strike notices will remain in place.

“If port users are concerned about the effect of these stoppages, we suggest they consider the result of some of Mr Gibson’s more hare-brained concepts that he is throwing around, such as complete contracting out.”

The Maritime Union of New Zealand says Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson’s approach to the current industrial dispute is having a “catastrophic effect” on negotiations to resolve the industrial dispute at the Port.

Maritime Union National President Garry Parsloe says port workers he had spoken to had been upset and disturbed at the continuous stream of letters from the CEO that were appearing in their letterboxes.

“This CEO has the gall to tell the media that his comments aren’t intimidating workers because ‘they are part of us’. Has he asked them?”

Mr Parsloe says the reason workers were concerned was their CEO was sending out letters two weeks before Christmas, that tell his workforce he is thinking about outsourcing all their jobs and putting them out of work.

“I’m not sure how that qualifies for a caring and sharing approach. Is this negotiation or stand over tactics?”

Mr Parsloe says if Mr Gibson wanted to communicate with workers there were plenty of noticeboards around the port to place material.

“Our members have the right to go home to their families after the long hours and 24/7 shifts they put in without being under attack from letters threatening their livelihoods. It’s an invasion of privacy and it is creating stress on families.”

“There is nothing illegal about what Mr Gibson is doing. However it is unethical and not incidentally it is on the verge of creating a complete breakdown in his relationship with most of his employees.”

“No one is sending Tony Gibson letters at home saying his job might be gone on a whim. Maybe his employers should be sending him a letter like that and see how he likes it.”

Mr Parsloe says the pressure tactics are having the opposite effect to what Mr Gibson intended.

He says the workers want to negotiate collectively, through their advocates.

Mr Parsloe says the Maritime Union members, who make up the majority of the Ports of Auckland workforce, are completely up to date with negotiations because they attend regular meetings with their elected negotiators.

“I will say that we speak to Ports of Auckland workers quite a bit more than Mr Gibson does. He just sends them letters telling them he is thinking about throwing them out of work.”

“This is the problem with this CEO, you can’t talk to someone who won’t listen. This is an individual with no social intelligence.”

Mr Parsloe says the way the CEO was approaching the negotiations made workers believe there was an agenda to deunionize, casualize and outsource.

He says that Mr Gibson’s attempted manipulation of the loss of a Maersk service to Auckland for political ends had undermined the Ports credibility, with even an editorial in the New Zealand Herald politely rubbishing his claims.

“Maersk, the world’s biggest shipping line, has been only too happy to play this country’s ports off against each other. It was at it again this week, shifting one of its biggest container services from Auckland to Tauranga.

On the way through, it took a shot at trade unions, saying strike action at Auckland had played a part in its decision. That seems improbable. Maersk’s switch, which takes effect tomorrow, would have been the result of months of analysis, not the upshot of a few days’ industrial action. Nonetheless, the shipper’s decision has again highlighted its influence, not least in the way this can run counter to the national interest.”

(Editorial, Friday 9 December 2011, New Zealand Herald)

Ports of Auckland Limited CEO Tony Gibson is a former managing director of Maersk New Zealand.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand has gained international and national support for its stand against management plans to outsource labour at the Ports of Auckland.

Maritime Union Auckland Branch Local 13 President Garry Parsloe says outsourcing and contracting out are regarded by maritime workers around the world as a tool for attacking wages, conditions and job security.

“That is why maritime workers at the Ports of Auckland now have global commitments of solidarity and support for our battle against outsourcing.”

He says last week’s meeting of the International Transport Workers’ Federation in Berlin, Germany, offered its backing to the Maritime Union of New Zealand and its members at Ports of Auckland and passed a resolution of support.

“This is basically the top level of organized labour representing global maritime workers who have lined up behind us, as they are not prepared to allow outsourcing and contracting out be used against workers in a major port such as Auckland.”

The ITF meeting was attended by Mr Parsloe and Maritime Union of New Zealand General Secretary Joe Fleetwood, along with global representatives of dock workers and seafarers including the Maritime Union of Australia and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (North America).

Mr Parsloe is convener of the New Zealand ITF affiliated unions who have also announced their support for the Maritime Union. These unions include MUNZ, the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU), EPMU, National Distribution Union, New Zealand Merchant Service Guild and Aviation and Marine Engineers Association.

In addition the ITF Offshore Taskforce Group representing global offshore oil and gas workers has offered their support.

“The Maritime Union has also secured the backing of the international Mining and Maritime Unions which met last month in the United States of America.”

Mr Parsloe says the national affiliates of the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions have pledged their support to the Maritime Union, meaning that the Maritime Union had massive international and nationwide backing.

He says in short the Ports of Auckland management must reconsider their position on outsourcing if they are to avoid major repercussions.

Mr Parsloe says that the current Collective Agreement between Ports of Auckland management and the Maritime Union already has provisions for labour flexibility to meet the peaks and troughs of shipping.

The ITF comprises 751 unions representing over 4,600,000 transport workers in 154 countries.