There’s been some chatter around about Labour’s position on the Ports of Auckland dispute.
At our core Labour believes that all Kiwis deserve decent jobs with fair pay, that they should have certainty around their work hours and conditions and their families need to know that they will come home safe and sound at the end of the day.
And while I’m at it, Labour will strongly oppose any suggestion that the Ports of Auckland be privatised. It is a public asset belonging to the people of Auckland, and needs to be kept for the benefit of future generations.
Sure, employers can seek reasonable efficiencies, effective labour utilisation and a fair return on investment. The Ports are an important part of our transport infrastructure and they need to be operating as productively and efficiently as possible.
But good faith bargaining and working together to find common ground is the way to achieve this, not wholesale redundancies and contracting out.
Labour is concerned about the increasing casualisation of the workforce in New Zealand. What this does is create uncertainty and stress for workers and their families – and, as we have seen, can cost lives.
Surely, we’ve learned something from the Pike River Mine tragedy about the folly of recruiting inexperienced workers and contractors into highly dangerous jobs and cutting corners on health and safety?
I’m worried that the pursuit of greater returns at the Ports of Auckland through contracting out will mean we could all be learning another tough lesson in a couple of years.
Stevedoring is difficult and sometimes dangerous work, and that should be recognised.
Three deaths at the Ports of Tauranga in the last 15 months should make us all question the safety of contracted out stevedoring firms who compete with each other for business.
No worker has died at the Ports of Auckland for 18 years.
Contracting out and competitive tendering is often used as a means to lower labour costs, through cuts to wages, reduced staff numbers, casualising work hours and cutting “red tape” such as health and safety.
Deregulation, short cuts and disregard for safety has already taken a terrible toll in some of our workplaces.
Let’s learn the lessons.
Darien, while its great to see this post and that you personally have been constantly supportive the boys on strike (and their families) when are we going to see the Labour Leadership take a stand on this issue?
As the Herald describes it today Labour are sitting on the fence while it seems likely those guys are going to loose their jobs.
Sadly both sides have spoken during this “dispute” but the truth has never been further from the pubic ears.
If there is one area of life where things are definitively never black and white it’s workplace relations.
If it’s true that the POA CEO threw a big BBQ with bonuses to thank his workforce for their great productivity then he has been disingenuous in recent times by claiming this is a productivity issue. Equally if he did do that then he is hardly an awful employer as some have tried to paint him.
Thanks for this Darien but can you please get this information out to mainstream media. It is looking as if Labour is keeping its distance from the dispute instead of being a staunch stand for workers rights, good faith bargaining and freedom of association. It may be only perception but perception is reality to most people if there is a lack of evidence to the contrary. David Shearer needs to step up to the plate on this one as does Len Brown. There really is no place to stand in the middle.
@Tracey: Threatening workers with job loss while they are trying to renegotiate a collective agreement is an unacceptable bargaining strategy and a breach of good faith in my view. This indicates to me that Gibson is not a good employer and cares little for the health and safety of his workforce. Its time he was called to account and instructed to settle the negotiations with his permanent workforce remaining.
It’s the problem of the Auckland Council and the Union.
The Ratepayers of Auckland are the Owners of the Company and they should be listened to also.
Profit is a deadweight loss and thus there is no such thing.
I don’t, I actually think it’s a good idea but I have a couple of conditions:
1.) It’s not suitable for every job and stevedoring would be one where it isn’t. It’s a highly skilled job and so you don’t want any tom, dick or harry walking in off the street to do the work and that means paying the stevedores well. It really would be easier to replace the CEO and the directors.
2.) A Universal Income so that those people who do do casual work don’t drop into poverty and
3.) Have a way to increase their skills so that they can, if they choose, move into non-casual work.
I’d say that the business community has learned that they can get away with it with almost no consequences for themselves. On the scale of the Pike River disaster the mine should have been nationalised with no compensation but instead we’re bending over backwards to cater to the laws and processes that were the cause of that disaster.
As I understand it it’s got a better than 100% chance of serious injury. People actually die on that job. It’s not “sometimes dangerous” but dangerous all the bloody time.
This is a local dispute. Shearer should steer well clear. And so should you, Darien. The MSM is finally starting to provide a bit of balance, and a few actual facts, so why on earth you folks would now fall for the oldest Tory trick in the book just as the PR is starting to turn, is beyond me.
It’s been suggested that ACity has put pressure on POA for a higher return. Who knows if that is true. Debbie I understand the points you make but my point is that as a complete outsider I have no idea what the “truth” is because like politics, the media simply repeat what the leader of the union or the CEO of the company says without much apparent investigation to establish facts.
You can post your link but you shold include a comment please. Clare
@ Draco
Profit is a deadweight loss and thus there is no such thing.
…and back on planet Earth, businesses are run for profit. The shareholders (by proxy, the public of Akl city) are entitled to a rate of return, however marginal, for their multi-decade investment to ensure the long term viability of the port as a public asset.
Overall, I agree with your comments re casualisation and associated risks. Casualisation is not appropriate for POA due to the nature of the work.
As I understand it it’s got a better than 100% chance of serious injury.
Yikes! You mean to say that every single steve is routinely maimed as part of their employment contract? Scratch that from my “What to be when I grow up” list.
this a fair view?
http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2012/01/useless.html
an efficient and profitable port will benefit many many businesses in Auckland. PoAL need to be as efficient and competitive as the Port of Tauranga just down the road. It seems to me the MUNZ is stuck in the 1950s and like the teacher unions unwilling to accept change and also come to the table with a delusional and aggressive mindset that they are the most important business. The truth is the MUNZ and the unionised workers have no sympathy from the public, nor the businesses feeding into PoA. They are restricting businessand adding costs to business. Most of the country would say a shake-up is long overdue.
I note that you have made no mention of the short working week, the mis-information about the fact the movements of ships are booked weeks if not months in advance and the fact that for an essentially low skilled job these guys are earning on average $91k per annum.
Let the dispute carry on, and please Labour get embroiled in it – as it will only serve to remind the country why the Nats are the best party for government.
@Rosa19 – it’s one view among many.
“Labour will strongly oppose any suggestion that the Ports of Auckland be privatised. It is a public asset belonging to the people of Auckland, and needs to be kept for the benefit of future generations.”
Unless the asset becomes a liability.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10778573
I hope Ms Fenton et al will read and ponder Alan Johnson’s comments and the Editorial in today’s UK Guardian.
@Monty – You’re not POA mangement are you?, you seem to be repeating their spin word for word. If the job is so low skilled why hasnt Gibson just replaced the entire work force already? He could just get 300 people off the street to drive the straddles and cranes, I’d love to see the productivity figures then.
MUNZ and the workers have a lot of support, I suspect its people that have very little understanding of the wharf environment and the demands of the job, and believe word for word the company’s press releases that don’t support the wharfies. They’ve repeated the 91k for 26hrs line incessantly – in the 13 years our wharfie has been employed at the wharf we have never earned anywhere near that figure, and he works long hours, you are repeating misinformation.
Just because a ship is booked in for a time “weeks ahead” doesn’t mean it is going to arrive at that exact time – there are factors that can alter the time of a ships arrival otherwise the company wouldn’t have a clause in the proposed new contract that they can change a shift up to 24 hours before it is due to start or can cancel the shift up to 8 hours before.
The company is the party with an aggressive attitude, they have not bargained in good faith, they are trying to bully the wharfies into accepting contracts that will be detrimental to them and their families.
And that is the major problem with capitalism. It’s what is driving growth in a finite world, causing the degradation of the environment (massive pollution of our rivers and climate change etc etc) and causing the collapse of the financial system as well.
It’s not my fault that the socio-economic system we use is delusional.
Darien what about POAL’s intent to deunionise the site. Amongst other things this breaches section 9 of the Employment Relations Act which prevents discrimination against unions when redundancies are being considered. There are a ton of ILO conventions this probably also breaches.
Is this an issue where the party should have a principled position?
Oh dear!
There is no hope for Labour if they do not understand publicly owned businesses were not set up to ‘give a fair return on their investment’ in conventional profit measures.
The purpose of publicly owned enterprises is to provide infrastucture that helps the economy thrive or provides necessary services as effectively as possible. Requiring such enterprises to make extra profit in their own right (other than the amount required for future investment)is a distraction from their true purpose, distorts their behavior, and removes the advantage they have over the private sector in terms of making a contribution to the economy.
The council should not be requiring a return (nor should government require a return on SOEs), other than the provision of an efficient and effective public service.
Until Labour ditches their attachment to the neo liberal ideas Roger Douglas sold them and has a serious economic rethink it will remain unable to defend the rights of workers because those rights are in direct opposition to the their economic beliefs.
Not a good start for the ‘fresh thinking’ of Shearer.
I work as a contract consultant – which means that I tend to work in bursts. i.e. I might work for 1 month to 3 months on a project and then have time off between projects. It is the nature of the work I do. I could choose to get a job doing similar work which will mean I can work my 40 hours per week, 48 hours per week, but I prefer this and it uses my skills more effectively.
This is my niche and I have adapted to it and need to focus quite clearly on what I do between jobs.
The problem I see here is Ports need specialist staff in bursts of activity with down time between. The company knows this as do the staff – it is not a new occurrence. Surely knowing this clever people would think of other profitable things their company and their staff could be doing in those times when ships are not in port. This broadening of the company portfolio could be a solution to the nature of the business. Surely staff don’t want to be paid for doing nothing – that is boring. Surely there are answers outside those that are now being considered. To use a cliché – time to think outside the box to solve the problem
Lefty – you need go go back and study the benefits of proivatisation.
The NZ economy (like so many around the world ) was being strangled by massively inefficient government owned businesses that were protecting their rights to exist. Service was poor, there was no accountability, and often making huge losses (propped up by tax-payers.
Telecom is an expample – service was high, no entrants could enter and provide competition, and technology investment was sub-standard. being a monopoly, consumers were ripped off. Management was sub-standard. Had the situation been allowed to continue the cost to business in NZ would have been massive. The benefits of privatising Telecom are improvements in all those areas noted above. Would Bell-Sough (and subsequently Vodafone) entered into NZ if the platform was not even. (and then 2degrees 20 years later) I guess we would be on dial-up if we were lucky.
Profits allow re-oinvestment and improved technology. But profits also allow competiton. No profit is a silly sad socialist utopia which is thecry of the economic illiterate. The need for profit drives productivity, business efficienies, re-investment, and consumer demand. It gives a reason to invest in the best business opportunity. But no use trying to explain to a socialist – you all seem to have very selective hearing.
I admit that I’m well to the left of Labour, but I’m still profoundly disappointed by Labour’s refusal to take a clear stand with the workers, instead putting distance between them and the dispute. For what end? There is a concerted effort to destroy what wages and conditions remain in New Zealand, and it is ongoing. They win this, even partially, and they’ll move on to the next thing. It’s no coincidence that the ports are one of the few (comparatively, by NZ’s weak standards) regulated workplaces in the country. We (the working public and their families) need all the support we can get.
This is like 1990 and the ECA all over again. A war is being fought, and Labour and their puppet unions are refusing to take a necessary stand. I’m a little disappointed that Denise Roche hasn’t taken a stronger voice. She’s a staunch supporter of workers, but hasn’t said enough yet. But at least she’s taking a strong public position. Whither Darien Fenton?
@George Darroch : how about having a go at the National Party? Labour can’t solve this dispute. National could – surely it’s time you and others started to call them on it?
@MickySavage : Yep, I am sure there will be legal action to keep the Employment Court busy for months. But it won’t win this dispute. And you are right about the ILO conventions, but don’t think the government gives a damn.
Labour does have principled positions on the right to join unions, to freely associate and collectively bargain. Nothing’s changed there and won’t. Sadly, I suspect these rights are going to be heavily tested in the forthcoming months.
Monty
Rewriting economic history will not change facts.
The privatisations you talk about were a massive failure and have cost this country dearly.
Telecom is the perfect example of this. We have been ripped off for years by voracious private sector owners who have provided inferior service at inflated prices. It was only when the state intervened that meaningful competition was introduced and by that time many millions had been frittered away in money repatriated to overseas owners in return for a very poor service indeed.
To try to pretend that none of the technological advances of the last 30 years would have happened without privatisation is nonsense but to not understand that in this country almost every area of economic activity on any scale has required state capital and expertise is true ignorance.
Take Telecom again. Not only would there have not been a nationwide telecommunication system without the state, the state has had to step in and front up with billions before we can get fast broadband because the privately owned telecom pissed its profits away instead of investing them in the next generation of technology.
The privatised enterprises have performed poorly in terms of innovation and the provision of services they have also failed to train a new generation of skilled workers and to provide decent jobs which underpin a successful economy.
Its time people like you admitted the failure of neo liberal economics and started looking at and debating alternatives before we end up with a total collapse.
@monty
You are incorrect to suggest there was underinvestment in Telecom’s network assets when it was entirely state owned. The big changes in terms of service and efficiency for Telecom service came when it was corporatised rather than privatised.
“But no use trying to explain to a socialist – you all seem to have very selective hearing.”
I think youll find monty that most average kiwis are not socialists, capitalists, communists or anything else. They see the merits in all of the systems, but none have worked to help the majority, they want an new system that is fair, is democratic and doesnt reward people who take risks at others expense. From experience, i wouldnt say that Telecom gives good service or follows its own marketing messages.
We should nationalize all New Zealand ports . The idea that ports are competing against each other is crazy. Bring them all under one managment. Then do away with this crazy contracting out, a complete failure where ever it is in operation.
Great idea John, then we can leave it to Govt elected management to rationalise our ports, and choose which ones to close down, that way we will get more efficient faster, as opposed to letting them fight tooth n nail for the commercial $ which will eventually rationalise the ports in the long-run.
The untold story in this dispute is how the Ports of Auckland repeatedly lies to the union, the Employment Relations Authority and the Employment Court in terms of its intentions.
SWIM was involved with an earlier appeal regarding a dispute surrounding the MUNZ/POA collective agreement and particularly the stevedores (by the MUNZ, in the Employment Court) where the POA legal team (they fielded an entire team of lawyers from a top big 5 firm) lied point blank to Judge Colgan that the contracting out of the stevedores work was not on the cards.
That was 2 years ago… nek minnit.
Can we assume from the silence of the National Party and its leader, and the lack of criticism of it by its supporters here that it is happy for it to meander along?
Monty you can repeat the view of one side of this argument until you are blue in the face but there are two views here whether you like it or not. Your POA good Union bad rhetoric/stance is childish.
For example is it true that we have too many Ports and that may be the crux of this problem? Has the CEO of POA denied that he through a BBQ congratulating the staff’s productivity and giving bonuses for it in September? Surely this is a truth easily outed?
The Head of Tauranga Ports said when they first got a part of Mearsk’s business (not all as implied/inferred int he media) that they have had “capacity” for some time and that contracts shift from ports to port regularly as ports outprice (read undercut) each other.
There’s bound to be a middle ground here, there always is, it’s just that who is prepared to sit there and give it a go?
RIP New Zealand’s Labour party. MIA for all but two months before the election. Now confirmed KIA.