3 minute read
National Secretary’s Report
Lots going on in our industry
Craig Harrison
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National Secretary
The last several months have been extremely busy for our Union and our members. I’ve visited many of our ports recently. There have been some good conversations about where we can make some progress in building our membership.
POAL
We have had major issues at Ports of Auckland, both around health and safety reports and management, plus the serious congestion at the Ports that have caused major problems throughout the New Zealand supply chain. However, change is in the air. The CEO of Ports of Auckland Tony Gibson has recently resigned. The Maritime Union will work with new management going forward, as long as it is on a basis of respect and acceptance of the role of our Union as the representative of workers at the Ports.
Coastal Shipping
MUNZ has been actively working on our coastal shipping campaign. There has been a lot of work going on behind the scenes. MUNZ officials have met with the Minister of Transport, Government officials and other stakeholders in the maritime industry. We’re seeing a change in attitude post–COVID as the need for supply chain security and local solutions has become more important. We have identified two major areas where coastal shipping has potential. One is as a financial and social investment for iwi, and the other is the growing support for shipping as the most environmentally friendly transport mode. As another aspect of fixing the New Zealand transport system, MUNZ has been advocating a national ports strategy. At the moment, we have a chaotic situation in New Zealand ports where congestion has resulted from poor planning and decades of “leave it to the market” deregulation. All it took was an international shock in the form of COVID-19 to expose how weak and vulnerable our supply chain is. It is obvious that ports in New Zealand need to be pulling together rather than competing with each other for shortterm gains.
National Council
The first MUNZ national council since our 2020 Conference was held recently with good representation from branches. It was good to welcome youth and women members, many at their first national meeting, as well as two members from ISO in Tauranga.
Upgrading our systems
MUNZ has a number of projects on the go at the national level. Our Union has recently employed a Tauranga-based organizer Leanne Jackson who will be working up and down the East Coast to build membership. This model may be replicated in other regions. There is an ongoing upgrade of our IT and membership systems which was embarked on last year. Over the rest of 2021 these new systems will start to be rolled out. There is also good progress on developing a new basiclevel union education and training course. This will be “going live” later in 2021 with larger branches but with the intention to bring members in from smaller ports. The goal of this training is to give those attending a good understanding of how our Union works, key parts of employment and health and safety law, and the tools and confidence to go back to their workplace and act as a delegate and workplace leader for our Union.
Long service
Our Union has seen the retirement or upcoming retirement of several long standing stalwarts from the industry. Phil Adams, Mick Williams, and Kenny Knox have all recently received life memberships of the Union. We also acknowledge the long service of Rob Powley who has recently celebrated 50 years on the Auckland waterfront, and the many years of national service of former National Vice President Selwyn Russell who stood down to concentrate on his branch duties.
