Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, March 7th, 2012 - 277 comments
Categories: Economy, Unions -
Tags: 100% stupid, auckland, ports of auckland
Today Ports of Auckland sacked 292 employees in the pursuit of the unobtainable by the idiotic.
The Ports of Auckland documents showed that, from the start, they intended to provide a conflict with the intent of sacking all the workers and rehiring them on worse conditions, saving $6m (20%) in wages a year. The amount of money saved was a pittance compared to the underlying problems the port needs to fix.
The decade long failure to put the required capital into the port as Don Baird from Mainfreight talked in the latter half of this nine to noon segment segment this morning is far more important for raising port efficiency.
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Rather than concentrating on what is required to make the port more efficient, the management chose instead to provoke a attention diverting but basically meaningless conflict.
Over the last decades the Ports of Auckland has been systematically starved of capital to upgrade cranes and transport systems by the demands of ratepayers wanting reduced rates. Successive councils have raided the profits of the Ports of Auckland thereby reducing the ports ability to make better returns.
The port sacking their employees will do nothing much to either their bottom line or for the supercity council’s stupid and unsustainable demand for a 12% return. It is more likely to reduce the efficiencies at the port over the long term. Casual workforces aren’t usually particularly motivated and have high turnovers.
In the short term the port management has bled money. In addition to the costs of the industrial action and the court actions that I’d expect to continue as they try to discriminate against unionists, they’re now going to have to pay out considerable redundancy payments. In many cases, they will pay redundancy to someone that they will be employing the next week.
At the bottom of all this is an irrational system of competing ports that are being forced to return exorbitant profits while fighting each other for the limited number of cargo ships that visit New Zealand. The only place they can find to cut ends up being the workers’ wages (the CEO’s wage is off the table, of course). How does this race to the bottom benefit New Zealand families? It doesn’t. Only the international shipping lines win when our ports compete and try to cut each other’s throats.
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Hell I think the union have alot to be sorry for here,grandstanding and putting jobs at risk.
Also what a bumbling ramble from our leader on larry williams tonight on radio,god I was cringing,how bad was Shearer,Im not a happy camper,we need real leadership now not a repeat of the last 3 years.
Trying to save one’s job is “grandstanding”?!
Unless you’re reading from the Business Roundtable’s dictionary, I think you have your values a tad mixed up, Terry.
The NeoLiberal assault on New Zealand’s Unions and workers continues along with the assault on the Commonwealth of this country.
All this trouble because the dividend of 6% is not enough they want 12% (From Campbell Live tonight) in a World where growth has ended. INSANITY!
Presumably that would make it a “NeoLiberal assault” led by Len Brown, Labour Party member.
Roger Douglas, David Caygill and Richard Prebble were all Labour Party members, and neoliberal shits the lot of them.
The neolibs have in turns infiltrated both the Labour Party and the National Party.
Yeah we’re good at infiltrating. We might even have infiltrated your friends and family C.V. Better make sure noone has any ideas that might seem a bit right wing I suggest. Maybe leave a $10 note around and see if anyone picks it up without distributing to the poor and oppressed.
yeah, it wouldn’t be the first time.
And yet… another group of high profile people, including those who you wouldn’t think were labour supporters.
They appear to think a race to the bottom is the wrong approach. Will Len listen? they’re going to see him.
I heard Baird on Radio NZ today – a businessman who understands the realities of efficiency meaning more than paying workers lower and lower wages.
A couple of things we can do; leave messages supporting the maritime (and AFFCO!) workers on John Key’s FB page, and for the martime workers, message Len Brown on the Auckland Council FB page;
Dear Leader
http://www.facebook.com/pmjohnkey?sk=wall
Len Brown
http://www.facebook.com/aklcouncil
Every bit helps to raise our voice in anger at this travesty!
Someone has even suggested occupying property of people linked to the management decision to contraqct out the workforce. Might this not include Len Brown? What are your thoughts on this subject Frank?
No can do, was banned/blocked from Shonkey’s fan page a very long time ago (and Blinglish, Judith Collin’s, hekia Parata, John Banks and several others)
Hmmm, I’m thinking of a good commercial opportunity here; badges with “I was blocked from John Key’s Facebook Page”…
And hence we have a low wage issue in NZ leading to workers heading to Aussie for higher wages. Do something about it or talk about it.
Tauranga makes 6.3%.
Most ports make about that. You either accept it or do not have a port!
Nelson makes somewhat less.
Lyttelton made more by avoiding spending. Having earthquake insurance pay for their deferred maintenance is a stroke of luck for them.
Auckland’s cost of wharf Labour per box is less than Tauranga.
Auckland is slower, partly due to logistic reasons, partly due to silo management and partly because of the constant war between labour and management.
When Gibson first got there and was playing nice the rate in Auckland went up 20 to 25%. So that efficiency gain was available just by treating the workers better.
MUNZ were prepared to change some work practices, but a lot comes down to management organisation also.
A lot of the extra capital costs are the ports duplicating facilities unnecessarily, to compete with each other.
Maybe Tony Gibson should read up on how to improve productivity – the research clearly shows that the workers are the key to productivity gains, not dismantling their contracts, but listening to them on how the job can be done better.
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/doe/benchmark/ch10.pdf (see table one – has Tony Gibson got ANY leadership traits?)
http://www.managementstudyguide.com/participative-management.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participative_decision-making
The statement that $6,000,000 will be saved from the wage bill which is 20% of the total wage bill gives an interesting number when you do the math. If 20% is $6,00,000 then 100% of the wage bill must be $30,00,000. If you divide this by the number of workers (292) then you come out with an average of over $102,000 per person. This is an extraordinary amount for them to be earning. This puts them into an elite range of people earning over $100,000 per year, more than double the average NZ wage.
You are aware the CEO reportedly earns $3300 per week, so you can deduct his $1.5 million from the $30 million for starters, then the $750K paid to a board member….
Philip
Your conclusion of the take home pay of the 292 sacked workers is complete hokum. Unless you actually believe that the total wage bill of POAL consisted only of those workers who were striking and are now unemployed?
The “wage bill” will include not only those 292 workers who have been “made redundant” it will also include all the admin staff, managers, tea ladies, cleaners etc, and most likely all the executive pay as well. Never mind those non-unionised guys who are currently loading and unloading on the wharves. (Not yet contracted out so therefore included in this wage bill.)
Do you actually know the total number of people who are employed and so included in the “wage bill” because that’s what “wage bill” means.
Even if you do, and you divide your calculation of the total wage bill by that number of people that still won’t tell you what the wharvies took home – the bill, as reported in the business accounts, also includes the transaction costs of actually employing staff (such as ACC contributions, tax paid to Inland Revenue etc). Even so, if you take out all the further costs to find the true total paid to the employees and then divide it by the number of employees you will only get an average wage, and a very mis-leading one at that.
There will be a graded pay structure (as with any employer) and those at the top of that structure will take home a bigger % of the wage bill than those at the bottom – so your average will over-report the vast majority of workers’ pay and under-report the actual pay of the small minority at the top.