Sacked but on the picket line

A waterside union official is joining others on the picket line to get job back after 'inflammatory' column. Photo / Dean Purcell

A union official fired for alleged racism joined wharfie workmates on a picket line yesterday.

Stevedore Graham McKean was dismissed from Ports of Auckland in September after almost 18 years. A judge says he had written a "highly inflammatory" column in a union magazine about the employment of foreign staff.

McKean is fighting his dismissal through the courts, but has lost a bid for interim reinstatement.

Yesterday the 51-year-old declined to comment about his appearance alongside dozens of disgruntled dockers at Fergusson Wharf. Strikers had staged a 24-hour protest in an ongoing dispute about working practices.

Maritime Union national president Garry Parsloe confirmed McKean was still on the union's executive.

"Graham is still an official but I can't say any more at the moment as it is still before the courts," Parsloe said.

In a column submitted to the September 2011 edition of the union magazine, Port News, McKean talked about recent sackings and redundancies.

He also voiced concerns about previous managers as well as the employment of workers from "one of the island nations" - by which he meant Tuvalu, an Employment Court judgment says.

The column was the subject of 11 complaints from other staff members and was variously called offensive, disgusting, racially divisive and insulting, the judgment said. Judge Christina Inglis characterised it as highly inflammatory.

In the article, McKean also wrote about past management employees: "They've packed up their Nazi uniforms and Darth Vader outfits with the bumhole bits cut out of them, their cat-of-nine-tails and their other toys for self-flagellation and trundled off to their rubber-walled dens where the mistresses know how to despoil, correct and require the naughtiness out of them for the time being."

McKean's hearing is set down for February.