Union Bargaining Position in Port Mediation

8TH March 2012

CTU and Maritime Union Release Union Bargaining Position in Port Mediation

The Maritime Union and the CTU are releasing the latest bargaining position of the Maritime Union in talks with Ports of Auckland.

Peter Conway, CTU Secretary joined Garry Parsloe, Maritime Union National President and the union bargaining team at mediation with Ports of Auckland on Thursday 1st and Friday 2nd March last week.

Peter Conway has said that “Richard Pearson, Board Chair of Ports of Auckland has claimed that the contract negotiations are 'completed' and he claims that I ended the talks last Friday”.

“This is simply not true”, says Peter Conway.

The Maritime Union has every interest in continuing the negotiations and indicated a willingness to attend ongoing mediation.

Garry Parsloe said that it is true that the union indicated they could not accept the Ports of Auckland proposed agreement.

“But that is very different from breaking off negotiations”.

“In fact”, he says, “the union offered several concessions including flexibility in rosters and hours, reduced overtime payments, and indicated other areas where discussions could continue”.

Garry Parsloe said that the real issue now is the fact that Ports of Auckland have not agreed to resume mediation despite the union request, and has instead indicated it intends to dismiss all workers covered by the bargaining. We want Ports of Auckland to remove that threat and return to negotiations. We will continue to vigorously oppose the dismissal of these workers.

“In the interests of transparency on the issue of what happened in mediation last Friday, we are releasing the Maritime Union position tabled that afternoon”.

Munz revised position 2nd March 2012

Given the progress made in talks over the last two days, Munz is prepared, without prejudice, to take the following position to a meeting of members on Monday, 5th March for consideration. We can be available for mediation for part of 6th March and 7th March.

1. 12 hour shifts to be worked on a basis to be agreed.

2. Removal of 1, 2 roster to allow greater flexibility in rosters across all 24 hours. This addresses interchangeability between shifts as everyone is in the floating roster.

3. Overtime of time and a half for 2 or 4 hours worked in addition and therefore the amendment of the automatic payment of 8 additional hours. This provides real savings for POA.

4. Increase number of part-timers (P24).

5. Changeover times – reduce. We are prepared to discuss this and believe that there are reasonable savings there for POA.

6. The above five matters as advised on 12th January 2012.

7. More effective use of ADOs and GDOs for P24s. We believe there is room for improvement.

8. Drug and alcohol policy as per Munz proposal.

9. Move between 8 and 12 hour shifts can be discussed but key issues will be – a reasonable lock-in period on a shift, reasonable notice of a change, and mutual agreement.

10. We note that POA are now saying that 160 hours can be guaranteed in their proposed collective agreement for each month but we advise that this appears to mean there could be huge variations in weekly hours and a major effect on workers and their families without a more regular work pattern across each week in the month. We believe that pattern is established in current provisions as well as the flexibility we have agreed in negotiations.

11. The contracting out provision of the collective agreement remains an important matter to be addressed in bargaining. We cannot accept the current wording given the conduct of POA. We accept that there is a statutory requirement for a collective agreement to refer to what must happen if there is a proposal to contract out. We will discuss wording on this.

12. Other claims by Munz remain ‘live’ unless amended in bargaining. You have made no response to our claims which are very minimal compared with your extensive list of major claims.

13. Labour utilisation, flexibility in shifts, work practices, and work allocation issues not addressed in this process of agreeing a collective agreement to be referred to a Continuous Improvement Working Party with agreed terms of reference and which reports to POA Chief Executive and Munz monthly on progress.

14. Pay increase 2.5%.

15. We believe that POA paying non-union staff a higher rate will continue to cause major concern on the port and we invite POA to consider how this can be resolved given the offers we have made to provide for more flexibility.

16. Conlinxx. We need to find a mutually acceptable way that this matter concerning a company 90% owned by POA can be addressed in a reasonable timeframe. We want to see shuttles fully utilised by our members and we are prepared to use this timeframe to achieve that.

17. We believe we have responded to your claims and are happy to clarify this accordingly in further discussions. We have provided you with an analysis of the major differences between the current collective agreement and your proposals. We have explained to you why we cannot accept your offer and it is important now that POA move from their extreme position of seeking huge variations in the current collective agreement or you will dismiss all workers and contract out their work.

18. There needs to be a commitment by POA to resolve all matters in collective bargaining.

ENDS

Note:

(ADO and GDO mean allocated day off and guaranteed day off).

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