Solidarität mit den ausgesperrten HafenarbeiterInnen in Auckland/Aotearoa

Quelle: LabourStart:

New Zealand: Support locked-out port workers

300 Auckland wharfies are being sacked so that Ports of Auckland Limited (PoAL) can contract out their stevedoring work. The workers and their families are fighting for job security and trade union rights.

The port management company, POAL in dispute with the Maritime Union of New Zealand (MUNZ) has repeatedly undermined the process of good faith bargaining and attacked workers’ terms and conditions at the port. These are conditions MUNZ has fought hard to achieve over the years. Whilst MUNZ has attempted to engage in meaningful negotiations with POAL to establish a new collective agreement, the ITF has received information that POAL has issued redundancy notices, hired non-unionised contracted workers and offered individual employment agreements in an apparent bid to divide the workforce.

This latest lock out move by POAL board members, namely POA Chairman Richard Pearson and CEO Tony Gibson, is a dirty and underhand aggressive assault on workers. This latest development has the international union community stunned. To issue a strike notice to workers just hours after agreeing to sit down around the table with them demonstrates that good faith negotiations were never the intention of POAL in reality. To go even further and lock the gates of the port when workers are entitled to return to their jobs, amounts to criminal behaviour which they must be held accountable for.

Auckland Mayor Len Brown can take steps to resolve this crisis before the port is run into the ground and confidence in the Auckland city council is irretrievably lost.

Call on Mayor Brown to listen to the overwhelming worldwide support for Auckland workers.