Vol. 76/No. 4      January 30, 2012

This fight is "about busting the union," Alan Drew told the Militant on a picket line Jan. 10. Drew, who drives a straddle carrier moving containers, has worked at the port for nine years. "If we lose, other unions lose and other ports lose too," he said.

The around-the-clock picket was part of a 48-hour strike, the fifth such action since December, to press for a new contract.

The port company demands flexible work rosters in place of the present eight-hour shifts. "The new hours are non-defined," said Grant Williams, a union delegate (shop steward) at the picket line. "We would go from little certainty to none." Williams stressed that "the work is dangerous" and already "we work all hours." The port operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, year round.

Shane Muir, who also drives a straddle carrier, said the flexible hours demanded by the company would mean that workers would be on call. "You could be getting ready for dinner and they might phone."

The port, owned by the Auckland City Council, is New Zealand’s largest container port, handling 37 percent of total container trade. The union contract expired Sept. 30. The company offered a 10 percent wage increase in exchange for flexible work shifts. The union offered an alternative concession: a 2.5 percent wage increase, in exchange for no changes in the shift schedule.

"The union position is clear. It does not want the 10 percent; it wants secure, ordered, and transparent rosters," explains a Jan. 8 union fact sheet.

"Quite simply, labour supply and the shift system have to flex with the 24/7 shipping schedule, which is highly variable," Tony Gibson, Ports of Auckland CEO, said in a Jan. 12 press statement.

The company broke off negotiations with the union Jan. 12, declaring it would not budge on the demand for flexible work hours and would hire private firms to replace the workforce.

"The only contract the port will accept is one with no terms or conditions," explained Local 13 secretary Russell Mayn, speaking at the Militant Labour Forum here on January 13. They want "no union in the port."

Mayn said the move to get rid of the union had been prepared long before the contract expired, pointing to a port company strategy document obtained by the union and to steps already taken to contract out some jobs. "We won’t be walking away," he said, "we are going to dig in and we intend to win."

The union "is organized internationally," Mayn added, pointing to support pledged by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union on the Pacific coast of the United States and Canada, and by the Maritime Union of Australia.  
 
 
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