Workers at port prepare to strike

By PAM GRAHAM

Workers are preparing to halt the movement of goods at Ports of Auckland's container terminals in a strike that has ramifications for all ports.

They expect to halt loading of ships at Auckland's two big container terminals for four days from September 8 and will picket the port.

The Maritime Union's Auckland branch president, Denis Carlisle, said workers were trying to set benchmark employment conditions that would affect all ports and Auckland had been chosen because it was the biggest.

This will disrupt a port that handles two-thirds of the country's imports by value and one third of its exports.

Employers and Manufacturers Association spokesman Bruce Goldsworthy said the short strike should not create too much difficulty for manufacturers because the port tended to gear up before strikes.

If it went on longer they might have to make other arrangements.

Carlisle said ports employed too many casuals and workers were being kept as casuals for too long.

Talks with labour mediator Colleen Hicks were "pretty much locked up" and the strike was likely to go ahead, he said.

The union's national executive would meet to see how it could offer support and port unions around the world were being contacted to give support.

Most ports in New Zealand work 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

That was achieved after costly strikes and it reduced the need to invest in new wharves because ships spend less time in port.

The trend internationally is for bigger ships to call at fewer ports and for them to be unloaded as soon as they arrive.

Ports of Auckland employs permanent workers, part-time workers guaranteed three shifts a week and casuals.

Carlisle said some workers had been casuals for nine years or more and were not able to organise their lives because they "lived on the end of a phone".

The union had had to fight recently to get wet-weather gear for casual staff.

It has proposed a scheme whereby workers moved to part-time and then permanent positions over time but the company wanted the right to choose staff, not a system that awarded transfers by time served.

Port spokeswoman Bronwen Jones said the company was in mediation and hoped a resolution could be found. About 240 staff were involved.