Over on FrogBlog, the Greens' industrial relations spokesperson Denise Roche speaks up about the Ports of Auckland dispute:
Ports of Auckland have consistently said that they want to increase productivity. However the hardline approach and lack of flexibility from the CEO, Tony Gibson, has resulted in days lost to strikes, and now the threat of a lock out doesn’t create a productive workforce. I wonder what the management’s real aims are, given that the company had previously drawn up a strategy to contract out the workforce, and Tony Gibson is threatening to call for expressions of interest while the contract talks were stalled. This is hardly ‘good faith bargaining’ – and it quite likely breaches the existing industrial relations laws.This is good to see. As for Labour, they're still missing in action, probably waiting for a focus group to tell them what their principles are. And they wonder why people don't turn out to vote for them...If the Board and management of POA were so concerned about increasing productivity and increasing the profit margins, how could they possibly consider a spend of $5million on redundancies – and potentially much higher costs resulting from legal action from the Maritime Union?
