Union warns port jobs will go

ROGER MORONEY
The Port of Napier's stevedoring shift toward an outside company which union officials are calling "non-union" looks as if it will spark industrial unrest which they warn is likely to spread to other ports around the country.
The port company announced yesterday that it had awarded the contract to handle on-board stevedoring operations in its container terminal to Tauranga-based International Stevedoring Operations (ISO) - ahead of Hawke's Bay Stevedoring Services (HBSS) which had previously held the contract and which has long-term associations with the port. HBSS workers come under the umbrella of the New Zealand Maritime Union.
Fred Wallace, of Hawke's Bay Stevedoring Services, declined to comment on what the ramifications would be for the company's 30 full-time staff and about 60 casuals, but the secretary of the Napier branch of the Maritime Union, Bill Connelly, had no doubts.
He said the company would be seriously affected as ISO, which set up an office at the Port of Napier in the early 1990s, had previously only worked on logging operations - picking up what he estimated to be about 2 per cent of the work at the port.
The container operations contract meant it would probably pick up between 50 and 70 per cent of the work.
Job losses, he reckoned, were inevitable.
"It's a loss of a considerable amount of work (for HBSS) and it is something that could have ramifications for other ports around the country."
Mr Connelly said he was also concerned that as ISO was a Tauranga-based company the local economy would be affected.
"It is money going out of the region - I object to that. It is profits and jobs going to Tauranga."
He described ISO as a "yellow" union, saying it operated its own union which only its employees could belong to.
He said ISO had tried to get stronger footholds in other ports over the past few years and that picket lines had been the usual result.
Maritime Union general secretary Trevor Hanson said the news had already generated a major backlash, with a national meeting of the union yesterday calling for solidarity "action" with the Napier workers.
Mr Hanson said the industrial ripple effects could go international - the union had spoken with the International Transport Workers' Federation and the Maritime Union of Australia.
"We are not going to allow a situation where local jobs are disrupted and destroyed."
Port of Napier chief executive Garth Cowie said ISO had been selected from a short list of five stevedoring companies following an open tender process.
He said the decision to change contractors had not been taken lightly given that HBSS and its predecessor Omniport had held the contract for many years.
"We do, however, want to improve our overall standards and capabilities and the rigorous tender process has fairly evaluated all the potential suppliers."
Mr Connelly said he saw the move as simply "a straight-out profit thing" that would probably end in local job-losses. He believed some of the ISO personnel would come from Tauranga.
Napier-based Labour MP Russell Fairbrother was also concerned that out-of-town staff would take local jobs.