by frog
There has been a lot of disinformation put out by Ports of Auckland Ltd and its sychophantic right wing bloggers over the last few weeks.
In this video, Maritime Workers’ Union members and their families talk about how the company (wholly owned by the Auckland Council – give Mayor Len Brown a call or send him an email) plans will affect their families. Here’s what the Ports of Auckland dispute is really about:
Six weeks ago, Green Party Industrial Relations spokesperson Denise Roche blogged here:
My concerns are that the real agenda is about breaking the Maritime Union and reducing the working conditions of the Port workers, but also it’s about privatising our assets and undermining the new Supercity structure. POA is wholly owned by the Auckland Council, but its Board was appointed by the Directors of Auckland Council Investments Limited, who were in turn appointed by privatisation advocate and former Local Government Minister Rodney Hide rather than by anyone democratically elected by the people of Auckland.
Auckland Mayor Len Brown was elected in 2010 on a promise he would resist asset sales. Christine Fletcher, who leads the right wing minority Citizens and Ratepayers bloc on the Auckland Council, has already signaled that she believes selling at least some of the Ports of Auckland will, in her opinion, make vast improvements at the Ports.
Different date, but same deal. This dispute is not about workers being greedy. It is about a Government and corporate driven neo-liberal ideological agenda to smash the union, casualise the workforce, and eventually privatise Ports of Auckland.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare | Featured by frog on Thu, March 1st, 2012
Tags: Auckland Council, denise roche, Len Brown, Maritime Union, Ports of Auckland, privatisation
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Disinformation?
It was bloggers who outed the union lies on their income (and the union continued to deny it!
It was the bloggers who posted video testamony of the oppression and bullying that the union has been subjecting no-union staff to!
It was the bloggers who outed the union’s hypoicricy on ‘casualisation’, as the union tokk the employer to court to prevent casual staff being made permenent!
It was the bloggers who outed the union boss as being at a confernce in Australia rather than with those on strike!
It was the bloggers who outed the union intimidation and inequity on those obtaining ‘hardship grants’ from members funds!
It was the bloggers who ….
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@Misanthropic Curmudgeon 2:06 PM
Got a link to that case, MC? As far as I can tell, the right wing blog stories on it all source back to Cactus Kate, who doesn’t provide any link to the actual case and may as well have pulled the story out of her arse.
Mind you, if PoAL were trying to undermine the union and undermine collective bargaining by making non-union casual staff permanent in breach of the collective agreement, I can see why the union would have a legitimate objection to that.
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Over 27 hours and no response, MC. Confirms my suspicions that you are just regurgitating unsourced and unlinked stuff from Cactus Kate.
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Hey toad, could you not call Misanthropic Curmudgeon MC. MC denotes the master of ceremonies or the person who calls the shots. A small thing, but clearly Misanthropic Curmudgeon isn’t an MC. He/she can barely formulate a coherent sentence, let alone argument.
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@Jackal 5:46 PM
Yeah, get your point, but his moniker too long to spell out in full every time.
Any thoughts for a shorter version?
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Hm! Well since his name translates as a general bad-tempered or surly person with a dislike for human beings, what about cur?
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Miscue
?
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@bjchip 6:38 PM
Yes! As an avid pool player, I think that is totally appropriate. The only ones I could think of were vulgar and Frog would have disapproved.
So “Miscue” it is, from now on!
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@Miscue 2:06 PM
Okay, now that’s out of the way, point by point on your queries:
And MUNZ continues to deny it, because it is not true. And, in any case, what is wrong with workers having an income they and their families can live on, and taking industrial action to ensure they continue to do so.
As far as I am concerned, I don’t give a shit about the non-union staff. If they are prepared to accept lesser wages and conditions than employees who have joined the union, that is there choice. But they have no moral right to freeload (without paying any union fees) on the wages and conditions the union has negotiated for its members.
Yep, I addressed that on this thread @ 2:36 PM yesterday, and you didn’t respond, Miscue.
I suspect he was there securing international support for the MUNZ, and that every union member will be grateful he was there doing that.
Huh? Don’t know what this is about, but if a union is dishing out money to support its members, surely the members’ loyalty to the union is a reasonable condition for them doing so. It would be stupid for any union to financially support people who are intending to be scabs.
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John Key and his Ministers often talk about balance; the balance between the environment and the economy and the balance between the economy and wages. However, at this moment I feel terribly unbalanced! http://localbodies-bsprout.blogspot.co.nz/2012/03/unions-and-balance.html
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toad spewed out the following bile:
1) “MUNZ continues to deny [the $90k a year], because it is not true” and yet Ernst and Young audited the claiom and agreed with it. Their report is online, at http://www.scribd.com/doc/79155583 for example (and I await your spitting of taxks at the Kiwiblog link)
“I don’t give a shit about the non-union staff.” WHic hightlights your antip[athy and hostility to people who dare step out from your collective, who dare to try and stand on their own towo feet.
You dont care about workers per-se, Toad, you only care about conformists to your political viewpoint.
“I addressed that on this thread @ 2:36 PM yesterday, and you didn’t respond, Miscue.” And that was because I have a life outside frogblog.
“if a union is dishing out money to support its members, surely the members’ loyalty to the union is a reasonable condition for them doing so. It would be stupid for any union to financially support people who are intending to be scabs.” No matter who paid the money in, eh Toad?
Your value set seems to be ‘all of the union, and the union for the union’
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@Misanthropic Curmudgeon 12:28 PM
If they choose to stand on their own two feet, Muscue, then they clearly don’t want or need my support or that of the union (or you, for that matter). Their choice, but why should you expect the union or me to then support them?
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Cry me a river of bloody tears “Daddy didn’t pay attention at school, ended up working on a wharf but now the nasty employer doesn’t want to pay him as much as a Doctor. Boo fucking hoo. All of these people are cautionary tales as to why it is important to stay in school and actually stay awake.
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Actually, I don’t see anything on that scribd link that actually says Ernst & Young actually did anything at all. Is there a link to Ernst & Young themselves? Somewhere? What I see there at scribd is… unattributable.
? Not that anyone mixed up in this would be lying their ass off… IMHO EVERYONE in this mess is lying their ass off, and covering same, and anyone working in Auckland for less than 70K is probably unable to live on what’s left after they pay for somewhere to sleep
So so so where does this leave POA and the dockworkers? Still at each other’s throats.
BJ
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@bjchip 2:40 PM
As is what happens in an industrial dispute, BJ. Each side tries to put the most positive spin on the facts to support their argument.
IMO, the best way for the protagonists to get past is to actually sit down and negotiate. But, in this case, it seems PoAL don’t want to go there, but would rather sack the entire workforce and contract out he stevedoring than work to settle the dispute.
PoAL played the nuclear option, and the real fear now is that the Auckland Council, and Auckland’s ratepayers who own (but no thanks to Rodney Hide have no control over) PoAL will be the ones who cop the bill.
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I again call for the PoA CEO to be sacked. His ineptitude seems to know no bounds. Every minute he stays at the helm is another minute worse for the port.
The bigger question (to which I have no answer) is has he done so much damage that the port is a dead duck.
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