Ports dispute 'top CTU priority'

The Ports of Auckland's industrial dispute has become the Council of Trade Union's top priority, the organisation's president Helen Kelly says.

Wellington-based Kelly is in Auckland this week to offer support to the Maritime Union of New Zealand after a six-hour mediation session with port management last week failed to resolve the dispute.

The port plans to make up to 320 union workers redundant and replace them with contractors. Port chief executive Tony Gibson said that its primary focus was on improving labour productivity through better labour utilisation.

Kelly, who attended the mediation, said port management acted in an ''unprincipled way''.

"We thought we were going to seek a collective settlement and offered solutions around labour utilisation, but fundamentally, they said they didn't want a relationship with the union."

This sort of attitude from the port couldn't be dealt with under the collective agreement, she said.

The main tools at the CTU's disposal for fighting this dispute was pressure from Aucklanders, who were concerned about what their local employer was doing and about their assets, she said.

The CTU's main objectives were to let the people of Auckland know what was going on at the port, where 320 people will probably be dismissed for unjustified reasons, Kelly said.

There was an agenda at work of privatising the port, which will result in the council owning assets and land, and private companies taking the profit from stevedoring, she said.

Gibson had said that he was not opposed to the privatisation of the port regardless of the views of the mayor and the people of Auckland, she said. This completed the puzzle on the reasons why settlement of the port agreement was not achieved last week.

''With the council now looking like it will have to fight to retain its ownership of the port, having the board and CEO working against it is like having a fox in the chicken coup.''

The International Transport Workers Federation - a global federation of 751 transport unions representing over 4.6 million workers - was very aware of the dispute and had offered their support.

Port spokeswoman Catherine Etheridge said the proposal that the union put forward in mediation wasn't taken seriously because it related to the existing collective agreement that expired in August.

The port withdrew its offer around this agreement after the loss of a major Maersk shipping contract meant it needed more substantive labour policies to be competitive.

- © Fairfax NZ News