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 Maritime Union has attacked what it describes as the “narrowness of vision” in yet another report into the state of New Zealand’s ports.
Maritime Union General Secretary Joe Fleetwood says the Ministry of Transport commissioned Freight Futures report travelled down well worn paths and added little to the debate.
He says the latest report promotes a free market agenda that was now globally discredited and driven only by corporate self-interest.
Possibly the intent of the report was to provide justification for the continuing “avoidance” approach of the National Government to ports policy – which could be summed up by the words of the song “What ever will be, will be.”
Mr Fleetwood says the new NZIER report repeats material from the recent Port Performance and Ownership report to the Local Government Forum, which represents big business and private sector interests.The report was biased against workers in the industry who it portrays as a problem, was hostile to public ownership and had a “thinly veiled contempt” for democratic institutions like local Government.
Claims that New Zealand port performance had been harmed by the Employment Relations Act were not accurate or backed with any substantive evidence.Mr Fleetwood says he is concerned that the reality of reduced pay and conditions, continuing health and safety issues, and the destruction of career paths and secure jobs for young workers in the ports industry, were not covered by the report.
He says the regular deaths and injuries of workers in the maritime industry, including overseas crews, showed a human cost to the so-called efficiencies of the free market.
“They didn’t put anything about that in the report though, as the lives and wellbeing of the workers in the industry do not seem to come into the equation.”"All it shows to me is that this is the usual bloodless and dry approach by people who have nothing to do with the industry and for whom short term profit is the only measure of success.”
“The authors of this report obviously have no understanding of how the increased usage of poorly trained and unskilled casual workers, and difficult and unsafe working conditions on some older and smaller ships calling at our ports, can impact on these statistics.”
The smaller size of New Zealand ports was just one reason why so-called efficiency comparisons with huge global terminals overseas was misleading.
These “underproductivity” arguments are rejected by many in the industry, and Fonterra’s General Manager of Logistics Nigel Jones had publicly responded to similar claims in a previous NZIER report by stating it was dangerous to look at issues such as crane productivity in isolation, because ports were part of the supply chain.
Mr Fleetwood says as taxpayers and wealth producers, maritime workers object to subsidizing reports by people who are remote from the everyday reality of our industry.
The Maritime Union has proposed an active maritime and ports policy rather than the fatalistic approach of the current Government.”We propose ‘KiwiPort’ a national ports plan, cabotage for coastal shipping and the investigation of New Zealand investment in shipping for our global trade routes.”The growth of specialist areas such as the offshore industry also had the potential for developing a high skill industry, and needed to be factored into any maritime policy.

The Maritime Union has dismissed comments by global shipping line Maersk about the merger of Port of Lyttelton and Port of Otago.

The two ports announced a planned merger of operations yesterday, subject to approval by the Chamber of Commerce.

Maersk New Zealand managing director Julian Bevis was reported today as saying he had concerns about the “dominance” of the new port structure and how this would affect prices, services and market competition.

Mr Fleetwood says it is hard to take such concerns with a straight face.

“Maersk is a massive operation, the world’s largest shipping and container terminal conglomerate, and they must really be short of things to worry about if this is all they can come up with.”

He says that Maersk’s ongoing global growth through mergers and acquisitions indicated that they had no concerns with any effect on competition by their own operations.

Mr Fleetwood says the goal of any capitalist corporate like Maersk was to dominate the market and reduce their risk and exposure to competition.

“Let’s face it, the reality is that they are the ones dominating the market and threatening competition, not two ports in the South Island of New Zealand.”

Mr Fleetwood says the problem with New Zealand ports was the exact opposite of Mr Bevis’ claims.

“New Zealand ports have long been played off against each other by powerful shipping companies, and even large local corporates such as Fonterra.”

This has resulted in serious disruption to regional ports, which had many negative implications for New Zealand’s economy and social stability.

Mr Fleetwood says the Maritime Union was cautiously optimistic about the merger between Port of Lyttelton and Port of Otago.

“Obviously it is early days, but ports working together like this could have benefits, as long as it does not lead to any regional ports being undermined.”

He says the Union would like to see ports remain under public ownership, but also come under some form of national co-ordination, a concept which the Union calls “Kiwiport.”

“Ports are not just another business, they are key infrastructure, and the gateway for New Zealand exports and imports. They need to be operated in the national interest.”

The Maritime Union had been active in the Keep Our Port Public campaign in 2006 during an unsuccessful attempt to part-privatize Port of Lyttelton through a deal with global terminal operator Hutchison.