Job losses at New Zealand port

The port’s container trade makes up a considerable amount of work and with shipping lines Maersk and Hamburg Sud leaving the container business and the continued exemption of shipping lines to coverage by the Commence Act, the Primeport is suffering.

Wayne Butson, general secretary, RMTU, said: “It was only in 2009 that Primeport made all of its operational workers redundant and hired those that re-applied for their jobs on new inferior terms and conditions of employment in an effort to retain traffic volumes. Clearly the strategy didn’t meet long-term the rapacious greed of these international shipping lines.”

“It makes no sense for a remote country of four million people, dependent on the export of commodities, to have no coherent national ports strategy. Shipping companies sign up for short term deals with individual ports, they make the necessary investment in plant and infrastructure and as those contracts come up for renegotiation the shipping lines move their business on to the cheapest bidder”, he added.

Timaru’s short term business strategy worked well however, the port has been left in helpless situation. The solution to the port’s problems would be to take New Zealand’s national ports “under central public ownership”, says Butson.