Importers relieved as first cargo offloaded

The union and the port disputed the number of containers taken off the Maersk Aberdeen. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Importers are celebrating the first discharge of goods at Auckland's strike-hit container port since last week, although the Maritime Union claims the volume unloaded was minuscule.

Union president Garry Parsloe said from Sydney yesterday, before heading back to Auckland for a resumption of mediated talks with the port company today, that little more than 20 containers had been unloaded from the Maersk Aberdeen.

"That's an absolute nothing - there's more movement in the morgue than what there is on the Port of Auckland," he said.

No export cargo was being loaded before the ship, carrying foodstuffs and other goods from Melbourne, was due to leave Auckland last night for Wellington.

But company chief executive Tony Gibson, who was on a pilot boat to meet the vessel yesterday morning, said more than 300 containers were unloaded ahead of schedule by non-union port staff.

He said more than 1000 more containers would be unloaded at the Fergusson terminal after another Maersk ship, Irenes Remedy, arrives from Brisbane this morning to discharge almost about a third of its capacity.

Importers' Institute secretary Daniel Silva said the Maersk ship's arrival was very welcome, as it brought important transtasman cargo such as tinned and packet foods to mitigate disruption to supermarkets from a three-week strike by 300 port workers.

However much was unloaded, it gave a strong message of support to the port after another shipping company decided to turn back a vessel about to arrive in Auckland on Sunday night, allegedly under international union pressure.

"It's good to see Maersk risking that pressure, as it accounts for 40 per cent of the import container trade to New Zealand," Mr Silva said.

Mr Parsloe said he understood it took hours to unload 20 containers from the ship "and it will be interesting to see what happens to them."

He refused to explain what he meant by that, or to confirm it as a threat, but said it would be interesting to see what happened to the Maersk ship after it left Auckland.

Before leaving at the weekend to seek international support for the strike from union conferences in Australia, he told the Herald that shipping companies docking at the Fergusson terminal "won't be welcome anywhere else in the world".

The Northern Employers and Manufacturers' Association is meanwhile warning of a possibility of business failures unless today's talks before a Labour Department mediator make progress towards settling the port dispute.

Chief executive Kim Campbell said his member businesses all operated on thin margins within very tight supply chain constraints, and any delay added costs.

He said extra costs such as freight surcharges of almost $100 a container due to be imposed by Maersk and other shipping company should be borne by the Maritime Union and the Council of Trade unions.

That was because their refusal to negotiate new conditions led to the present impasse, despite strong assurances that a proposed deal would maintain workers' hours, wages and number.

The union says the port company's insistence on shifts ranging from five to 12 hours a days will put its members at the beck and call of their employer, and kill family life.

Auckland Council transport chairman Mike Lee said comments such as Mr Campbell's served only to inflame a dispute which needed urgent resolution.

"Leaving that aside, it's interesting to see how New Zealand employers and manufacturers are only too willing to gang up with overseas shipping cartels against the New Zealand workforce."

SHIP TO SHORE

34 Ships affected by three-week strike

Of these:

* 11 ships will be bypassing Auckland

* 5 ships with their own cranes diverting to Auckland multi-cargo wharves to avoid the dispute

* 2 ships calling at the Fergusson container terminal in defiance of the strike

* 16 other ships facing delays, but their movements yet to be confirmed.

- Source: Ports of Auckland website