Auckland needs its Port to be working at full capacity again and yesterday I thought we might be getting there.
After Employment Court Judge Barrie Travis issued his minute late yesterday, it seemed like the damaging dispute could be settled, through a return to good faith bargaining and mediation processes under our employment law.
Today we have the strange situation where the Ports workers want to go back to work, but apparently PoAL won’t let them.
PoAL has issued notices of indefinite lockout which came less than 24 hours after they agreed with the Employment Court to resume good faith negotiations.
But that notice doesn’t take effect until 14 days after the notice was issued. The workers are lawfully able to return to work in the meantime and I understand this was their intention. If the Ports management prevent them, it will be an unlawful lockout.
Perhaps it was coincidence, but last night we debated the final committee stages of Tau Henare’s Secret Ballot for Strikes bill. The Bill would require unions to conduct secret ballots wherever strike action was being considered. Most unions already do this, but there are real problems with this bill, which I won’t go into too much here.
Tau’s argument was that this was democratic. OK. But why should only one party to the employment relationship have to be democratic? I proposed an amendment that would have provided more balance to the bill, which would have required shareholders to conduct a secret ballot before a lockout.
So, in the case of the Ports of Auckland Ltd, the shareholders would have had to hold a ballot before the lockout notices were issued. That would have been interesting indeed.
But of course the National Party and its cronies voted the amendment down, along with others that would have made the bill more workable.
Like so many things in the employment relationship, National believes that things should only go one way – and that’s definitely not in favour of workers.
The Ports settle in for a siege.
The Auckland Ports dispute looks set to drag on for another two months as POAL pay union workers to stay away, prior to locking them out indefinitely.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO1203/S00353/poal-comment-following-employment-court-hearing-today.htm
The Ports management have illegally locked out their unionised workforce “indefinitely” with out giving the legally required two weeks notice.
To maintain this illegal lockout, the Ports management will pay the illegally locked out workers to stay away. That is, until they can be locked out “legally”.
The plan is to keep the wharfies off site until the official notice period has expired and the notice of the indefinite lock out becomes legal.
POAL are following the old legal maxim that, “Possession is nine tenths of the law.”
It is obvious that the Ports management will do everything, legal and illegal, to keep the wharfies away from their jobs at the port, and for as long as it takes to crush the union.
It looks likely that we are witnessing the beginning of a two and a half month siege.
From POAL Comment Following Employment Court Hearing Today, Tuesday, 27 March 2012, at 5:01 pm
Ports of Auckland Press Release:
During the time of the lockout Ports of Auckland will make every effort to negotiate a collective agreement with MUNZ that includes a clause that allows the Ports to replace MUNZ with contractors.
There, fixed it for them.