Port sackings crucial to win back business

Ports of Auckland (PoA) has pushed through a plan to contract out jobs at its container wharves – saying the decision was necessary to bring business back to the ratepayer-owned port.

Close to 300 workers, mostly stevedores, have been made redundant and PoA will instead contract out work at its container terminals to three stevedoring companies, yet to be confirmed.

The issue of contracting out the jobs has been at the centre of a bitter dispute which has spanned close to six months and cost an estimated $6 million in lost revenue to the port.

Consultation on the redundancy process is due to start later in the week. The port is expected to have to write a cheque of $30,000 - $35,000 for each redundant worker.

Ports of Auckland chairman Richard Pearson says the redundancies were necessary to bring back business lost during the strike – mostly to its rival Port of Tauranga.

“We have had a very clear message from our customers to say if you do not change, we will not bring the business back. On that basis, you have to say it’s a most compelling business case for what we have decided to do,”

He says productivity gains – which PoA argues make the workforce changes necessary – had become evident in recent weeks, despite the reduced, stand-in workforce.

“We’ve got about 50 guys, mostly on individual employment agreements, and they are working the gates and ships going gangbusters and we are operating at a level 25% higher than before when we had the Maritime Union of New Zealand normal work practices in place,” he says.

The Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders Federation of New Zealand has given its support to PoA. President Willie van Heusden said the effects of the escalating union spat had put the country’s import and export industry at "great risk."

“The action has been seriously affecting New Zealand’s supply chain and damaging our international reputation and this was the inevitable and common sense approach to resolving it,” says Mr van Heusden.

“It appears that at long last there is a resolution and the industry knows, with some certainty, that operations will be back to normal at Ports of Auckland within two months.”

But unions have not taken the decision lightly and are vowing to fight what Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly has called “a sham of a process”

The Maritime Union of New Zealand, governing the stevedores, started seeking legal advice well before Christmas on what it could do if the jobs were contracted out.

However, employment law specialists say the grounds for a legal challenge are limited.

Today, Maritime Union president Garry Parsloe said the redundancies were just the beginning of a major trade movement. 

“This isn’t the end of it, the trade union movement's not going to put up with this, the NZCTU is not going to put up with it, the internationals are not going to put up with it."

Although PoA is encouraging redundant workers to apply for jobs with the new contracting companies, Mr Parsloe said it’s unlikely any will return to the ports and ill-will existed towards PoA chief executive Tony Gibson.