Maritime Union of New Zealand

New Zealand Breakers fan Matt Balmforth is stoked that the thundersticks will be there in time for Friday’s semi final at Vector Arena.

A Ports of Auckland worker for the past 14 years, Matt Balmforth is a close follower of the Breakers, and will be at Friday night’s game against the Townsville Crocodiles.

“The thundersticks can be bloody loud at times but it’s all part of the atmosphere,” he said.

“I’m pleased KiwiRail will help get them there in time.”

But Matt said this delay shouldn’t have happened in the first place, and he wants to see the Ports of Auckland back moving freight again for businesses and groups like the Breakers.

Matt is one of nearly 300 Ports of Auckland workers who the company has locked out indefinitely.

He says all he and his workmates want to do is get back to work with a fair employment agreement and get the Ports up and running again.

“The Breakers shouldn’t have had this extra stress.  It was totally avoidable, if Ports management hadn’t pushed ahead with its attempt to dismiss all of us and bring in contractors.”

Matt said he hoped other Auckland businesses would send a message to Ports management to end the lockout and get the Port running again for Auckland.

Today’s injunction stopping Ports of Auckland progressing its plans to dismiss and replace its workforce, combined with the company’s plan of an indefinite lockout, leaves Auckland Council with no choice but to intervene to find a workable solution to the industrial dispute, the Maritime Union said today.

Today the Employment Court confirmed the union had an arguable case that Ports of Auckland had acted unlawfully in some aspects related to collective bargaining.

Until the matter could be heard in full on 16 May, the Court has ordered Ports of Auckland against proceeding with its plans to dismiss and replace its workers.

On Friday the Court will consider the issues of the return to work of the workers who ended strike action last week, and of the legality of the Port lock out notice effective from 6 April.

Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe said the parties can keep slogging the issues out in Court, but in the end the solution to this issue is finishing negotiations for a collective employment agreement, to get the Ports of Auckland up and working again.

“Ports workers remain ready to return to work and get the Ports working on behalf of the businesses and customers of Auckland,” he said.

“The people of Auckland are losing millions a day in returns, exporters and importers and other businesses are bearing extra costs and the workers are facing severe financial hardship.”

“The only group that appear to be having a good time is the Ports of Auckland Board.  Aucklanders need to question why Board members continue to collect their massive salaries for initiating a train wreck of a plan that now is not only in tatters, but is unlikely to be resurrected,” Garry Parsloe said.

The union has asked the Mayor and Council to step in and hopes to address Council at its meeting on Thursday.

Union members will meet tomorrow at noon to discuss today’s developments.

The Council of Trade Unions is calling on Transport Minister Gerry Brownlee to tell Aucklanders what information he is withholding on the Ports of Auckland dispute.

Last month the CTU wrote to Gerry Brownlee under the Official Information Act, requesting any briefings he has had on the Ports dispute.

CTU president Helen Kelly said his response, received today, said that he would refuse to release any information at all.

“Gerry Brownlee needs to explain to Aucklanders what he is withholding.”

“The Port is one of Auckland’s most important assets, and it is being run appallingly by the current Board and management.”

“There is a clear public interest in knowing what our Transport Minister is being told about this dispute.”

Global union the ITF (International Transport Workers’ Federation) today described POALs lockout decision as “unbelievable, unlawful and practically suicidal”.

ITF president Paddy Crumlin said: “It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion. Do Richard Pearson and Tony Gibson have a death wish for this port? Just when a negotiated settlement was within reach they have trampled on those hopes and issued a lock out notice.”

He continued: “The thugs in this dispute are in the boardroom at POAL: slinging out workers, locking out workers, trying to bring in strikebreakers from outside New Zealand to replace a willing and skilled workforce. Gibson and Pearson beggar belief. It’s like they want to turn this port into a disaster area.”

Crumlin was speaking from the ITF’s London headquarters, where the organisation’s Fair Practices Committee (FPC) – a high level group made up of global docker and seafarer union representatives – was planning its response to this latest provocation.

“We are today calling on our members to use all lawful means to convince Auckland’s mayor and council to step in and replace those in the POAL board responsible for these actions with members who are willing to run this important asset properly for the benefit of the city of Auckland and its citizens.”

“We are also forming an international crisis mission to investigate the management-engineered crisis in POAL and meet with the city’s mayor, as well as further investigating the use of labour supply companies to break strikes and drive down conditions in the ports industry in New Zealand and internationally.”

Crumlin concluded: “Today’s decision by POAL’s chairman and CEO to crush the hopes and chances of a solution that was so close just yesterday has shown that they are not fit to be running this enterprise. The port of Auckland is community owned. That community has been sold out. Even those who have supported the management so far are now realising that they are defending the indefensible.”

Following enquiries, this advisory points reporters to employment law covering strikes and lockouts in essential services.

Schedule 1 of the Employment Relations Act lists certain occupational groups of ‘essential services’, which are bound by extra notice provisions for strikes and lockouts.

Ports are included in Part A of the schedule, specifically: The provision of all necessary services in connection with the arrival, berthing, loading, unloading, and departure of ships at a port.

In a Port, for either a workers’ initiated strike, or an employer initiated lockout, 14 days notice needs to be given of the action.

This morning, Ports of Auckland served an indefinite lockout notice of workers, to take effect in 14 days time at 12.01am on Friday 6 April 2012.

Until then, Ports workers are legally able to enter the Port to carry out their jobs as normal, following the lifting of the union’s existing strike notice.

Any lockout of workers between now and April 6, therefore amounts to an illegal lockout.

The Maritime Union will also challenge the legality of the lockout notified for 6th April.

Ports of Auckland workers are shocked to learn that the Ports have moved to lock them out of their jobs.

Ports workers have this morning been served an official lock out notice from the Ports of Auckland, to take effect in two weeks.  The notice is for an indefinite lockout.

But for the next two weeks, between now and then when Ports workers are lawfully able to return to their jobs if a strike is lifted, the company will lock the Port gates and prevent them from returning – amounting to an unlawful lockout.

This move comes even before they have even had a chance to meet and discuss developments at their union meeting today at midday, Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe said.

The workers will protest at Ports this afternoon, he said.

“Ports workers are ready to go back to work and get this Port moving again for Auckland.

“It is deeply disturbing that the company’s vision is so blurred on this dispute, that they now want to stop the Port functioning.”

“Governance at the Ports of Auckland is out of control.  It’s time for the Mayor and Councils to step in and sack this board, and replace them with a group who are willing to run this important asset properly for the benefit of Auckland,” he said.