Dumbarse ports management and owners

Written By: - Date published: 11:24 am, March 7th, 2012 - 278 comments
Categories: Economy, Unions - Tags: , ,

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. this segment

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.

278 comments on “Dumbarse ports management and owners ”

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  1. Olwyn 1
    7 March 2012 at 11:38 am

    I do so hope that the courts can overrule this management decision, which stinks of bad faith bargaining, with concrete evidence to prove it.

  3. Uturn 3
    7 March 2012 at 11:41 am

    Your last paragraph is the clincher, because it highlights that the wider system is broken – not just ports play that game. It’s broken for all but a few, though the many actively support it. It should be a no-brainer: that a nation not support self destructive economic models.

    I guess people in NZ like to pay less attention to what will eventually turn up at their workplace (oh no, of course it won’t happen to you…) and prefer instead to pay more attention to Zooey Deschanel’s newest sitcom – a wacky inide hit with the hip kids ! hooray!

  4. Bored 4
    7 March 2012 at 11:45 am

    Might I suggest that every worker involved individually present a Personal Grievance, use the document mentioned to show that each sacking is a premeditated action. It would cripple the courts by sheer volume, and would cost the POA a bundle.

    Easier, might the sole shareholders boss (Len Brown) sack the management.

    • Uturn 4.1
      7 March 2012 at 11:52 am

      There are many creative and simple apporaches. The CEO and managers have houses yeah? They don’t live on the moon? Occupy their neighbourhoods. Bring reality to the comfy suburbs. Occupying the Ports is like waiting for the media to wake up and casually take some photos we’ve all seen before for santised, distant, regulated, 6 o’clock, barely conscious, ho hum. It’s a little different when you can’t hit mute on the remote. When employers have stolen from me in the past, I visited their homes. Tends to wake them up that I won’t wait for the polite manner of due process. Now imagine a few thousand turning up at your home, and the homes of your managers, and none of them are happy.

      • dave brownz 4.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 12:01 pm

        No occupying the ports is asserting public ownership of the ports when in fact its already been corporatised via Super Shitty reforms. The media can do what they like but they can’t ignore such an action. We are not talking personal grievances here but social ownership. Workers need to take solidarity action and take ownership of this ‘public’ asset rather than be pushed around by those they elect as powerless dupes.

        • Uturn 4.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 12:12 pm

          I don’t know how you can interpret an employer stealing a livelihood from a family as anything but a personal attack. My view, and experience, is that nicey-nicey, let’s call in the lawyers, let’s make a political statement, is all fine up to a point, but it doesn’t address the result of no money and no way to pay your mortgage. The negotiations have failed. Nicey nicey is over. Any more nicey nicey and they lose without recovery. Simple as that.

          • dave brownz 4.1.1.1.1
            7 March 2012 at 1:44 pm

            This is the problem in this country when unions are almost non-existent. Jobs are seen as personal property. In fact MUNZ jobs are union jobs. They are better jobs, higher paying with better conditions for that reason. That is what is being defended here. An injury to one is an injury to all.

            The current union position is ‘nicey nicey’ being led by the CTU which works inside the ERA. The ERA is a continuation of the labour law that has hamstrung labour in NZ since the 1894 IC&A Act. That’s why in 1908 the Red Federation broke away to take on the employers directly. They were only defeated when isolated and inundated by cops, cossacks and scabs in 1913. The state used brute force which was not backed by any law other than the employers power to use the civil disorder they engendered as a pretext to defend their private property.

            Occupying the port is not only about defending union jobs of wharfies, its defending what’s left of the unions and the only power base that workers have to stop this NACT regime from imposing its rip, shit and bust agenda. It would be a class conscious political act, just as the POAL actions are a class conscious attack on workers. Of course its illegal, no big social change has even been legal! It is class war nothing ‘nicey nicey’ about it.
            http://redrave.blogspot.co.nz/2010/03/more-wildcats-dead-fed-vs-red-red.html

            • Bored 4.1.1.1.1.1
              7 March 2012 at 4:14 pm

              I am with Uturn, this should be made intensely personal, the idiot CEO of POA should be made a pariah where ever he happens to be. Make it as uncomfortable as possible.

              By the way perhaps with the zeitgeist of laissez faire neo liberalism being “individualism” then an individualised approach is very appropriate (as opposed to the collective….).

              • Te Reo Putake …
                7 March 2012 at 4:30 pm

                Too right! The man is prepared to destroy the families of 300 workers, so why not take the fight to him. I presume he can be found somewhere up Parasite Drive way. Bring plenty of pots and pans, whistles etc. Anytime after sunset would be the go.
                 
                Just remembered a brilliant picket back in the early nineties in support of some laid off workers. The boss reckoned he had no money for redundancy pay, so the workers set up a picket in the one place they knew he was vulnerable. His yacht club down in Mission Bay. After a few minutes of blocking the entrance the next Staurday morning, the club commodore dragged the boss down to the picket line and made him get his chequebook out. Problem solved.
                 

                • Gosman …
                  7 March 2012 at 4:40 pm

                  Go on then. Organise something like this. It would be good for a laugh from my perspective at least. While you’re at it you could possible do something outside Len Brown’s place as well.

                  • Tom Gould …
                    7 March 2012 at 5:32 pm

                    And don’t forget the conspiracy theorist who reckons a certain person close to Key called a certain person close to Gibson to hint that bringing the sacking forward to today would be helpful to knocking the uber-popular launch of the referendum on asset sales off its perch. Some people.

                • Bill …
                  8 March 2012 at 7:55 am

                  Bring plenty of pots and pans, whistles etc. Anytime after sunset would be the go

                  If you are hitting someone’s domestic residence, then that is not what you want to do. Apart from the predictable reaction of the media, neighbours have kids and so on and the ‘right’ to not feel intimidated in their home/neighbourhood. You want them on-side.

                  Better to simply leaflet the neighbours with a ‘bio’ of the guy at number 13, or whatever.

                  That way, his ‘nice neighbour’ persona is blown and you don’t alienate potential support.

        • Vicky32 4.1.1.2
          7 March 2012 at 5:01 pm

          Tends to wake them up that I won’t wait for the polite manner of due process. Now imagine a few thousand turning up at your home, and the homes of your managers, and none of them are happy.

          Dave Brown and Uturn, why not both? Occupy the Ports and management’s homes!

          • Bill 4.1.1.2.1
            8 March 2012 at 7:56 am

            Any reason why workers can’t issue management with a notice of lock out through their union?

    • burt 4.2
      7 March 2012 at 11:54 am

      And during that process the port would close completely. How many workers do you think it would need to reemploy (under any conditions) after that process has been completed and all port business has relocated to other ports and found that the world hasn’t ended in doing so ?

      • Uturn 4.2.1
        7 March 2012 at 11:59 am

        You state there is no choice but to quietly drift into the inevitable. I disagree. It is neither necessary or inevitable. End of discussion.

    • Dr Terry 4.3
      7 March 2012 at 7:17 pm

      I have just watched Len Brown on Campbell Live. At the very conclusion of the interview he made very clear whose “side” he is on – he thinks the workers should have accepted the terms of the fat, rich, powerdful Tory bosses. And Brown benefitted from union support! He has lost my trust.

  5. starlight 5
    7 March 2012 at 11:49 am

    NZ is now living in a ‘sinking lid’ of less jobs,less democracy,less financial prospects in the favour of a few.
    This just cannot continue,something big needs to happen similar to the wharfies strike years ago.
    The correlation between Goldman Sachs and key really needs to be bought out into the open
    by the media,key needs to be questioned about who it is he is taking advice from.
    The ports of Auckland and Tauranga were targets for Goldman Sachs as i have posted
    before,references can be found on interest.co.nz.

    • muzza 5.1
      7 March 2012 at 12:41 pm

      Starlight, your points are simply lost on this site. Some here like to believe that these are all seperate events, and that anyone is able to join some rather obvious dots, is a “nutbar” or pulls the conspiracy card out!

      This is part of an orchestrated attack on NZ with the aim of taking control of as many strategic assets as possible before the sheep become startled, at which point it will be too late, what is left of hard assets , which are supposed to benefit us all, as opposed to the few, will be gone.

      I’m now having to listen to people I work with pass their ill or nil informed opinions about the warfies, and those I can hear, seem in favour of the sackings. Passing comments on such matters as another persons income, job security etc from any position, least of all ignorance is something I have a major problem with!

  6. Craig Glen Eden 6
    7 March 2012 at 11:51 am

    Len Brown has been a disgrace through out this dispute so much for building communities Len you are a gutless wonder.IMO Len Brown should be thrown out of the Labour Party what a hypocrite he is to working people.!

    • Morrissey 6.1
      7 March 2012 at 1:38 pm

      “Len Brown should be thrown out of the Labour Party”

      Really? I thought he was acting exactly like the Labour Party leadership does, i.e., he keeps his head low, and says nothing to upset anybody in the National Party or the Business Round Table.

  7. mickysavage 7
    7 March 2012 at 11:53 am

    The reports are unclear but is it only MUNZ members being made redundant? 
     
    If so it may breach section 9 of the ERA which says that “[a] contract, agreement, or other arrangement between persons must not confer on a person, because the person is or is not a member of a union or a particular union … any preference in obtaining or retaining employment; or … any preference in relation to terms or conditions of employment (including conditions relating to redundancy) or fringe benefits or opportunities for training, promotion, or transfer.”

  8. queenstfarmer 8
    7 March 2012 at 11:54 am

    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

    So you assert. But fortunately we have other ports, such as Tauranga, by which to benchmark Auckland’s port. The facts show that the Auckland port is comparitively inefficient. Understandably, Len Brown is not happy with this – his big spending, big local Govt plans needs every cash cow he can get. So whether the port’s plans will work is unknown at this stage, but it is a fact that it can lift its game.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 8.1
      7 March 2012 at 11:59 am

      Has more to do with wharf configuration and container storage. As well PoT just loads stuff, very little unload.

    • lprent 8.2
      7 March 2012 at 11:59 am

      The facts show that the Auckland port is comparitively inefficient

      Not on any figures I have seen. Most of them appear to have been written by morons and look at productivity per worker. The moron part is that they exclude the casual workers because that is in the contractor costs. But it is still a cost, and appears to be higher than if Tauranga had employed workers themselves.

      That isn’t a measure. That is idiotic. Can’t people read financial statements?

      When you look at something more comparable, like return on capital, capital per container, etc then Auckland looks good. Of course part of that is efficiencies of scale.

      So put up some figures and links. I’ll happily take a few minutes and tear them to pieces. Some of the ‘debate’ on this topic has been pretty dumb – starting with Cactus Kate’s wages figures and proceeding to your statement above.

      • queenstfarmer 8.2.1
        7 March 2012 at 12:34 pm

        So put up some figures and links. I’ll happily take a few minutes and tear them to pieces

        OK, let’s go with this from the Maritime Union’s own website – see page 39
        http://www.rmtunion.org.nz/publications/documents/AnnualConferenceMinutes2011.pdf

        It shows Auckland having the 2nd worst container movement rate in NZ.

        It is from the Port of Tauranga’s presentation, but if it was so blatantly wrong and deserving to be “torn to pieces”, I hardly think the Union (or those others present) would just allow such lies to be included in their report and remain in their annual report without comment.

        • queenstfarmer 8.2.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 12:41 pm

          Clarification: it’s the Rail & Maritime Transport Union, not the Maritime Union of NZ.

        • lprent 8.2.1.2
          7 March 2012 at 12:52 pm

          It is a presentation by Ports of Tauranga to the union which was why it was in the PDF. You don’t remove stuff even if is wrong. What would have been interesting would have been the actual talk.

          There isn’t enough information in that slide to draw any conclusions. In particular.

          1. What is the actual source (“Ministry of Transport” is meaningless).

          2. What hours are they counting? If they skip hours when there is no ship or overnight (as I suspect), then it is a meaningless comparision. Capital efficiency is based on the whole time and as I remember PoT doesn’t usually run all of the time and rarely has a night shift.

          This is what I describe as moron level thinking. People get a meaningless statement drawn from dubious data and build a whole dumbarse argument from it.

          Come back when you have something that doesn’t show the moron marks of a RWNJ raised on talkback radio (ie Whaleoil if I had to bet)

          • queenstfarmer 8.2.1.2.1
            7 March 2012 at 2:00 pm

            So you think that the union has been forced to leave blantantly false information, from a presentation containing “meaningless” information, for which they record their thanks to the presenters, on its site without comment? Yeah, right.

            • lprent 8.2.1.2.1.1
              7 March 2012 at 8:21 pm

              Where did I say that?

              I disagree with what you just said that I said. And, you avoided all of the actual points in my comment and tried a hackneyed debating tactic…

              Try this fact. I think that you are a gutless fuckwit who states as ‘fact’ things that are not, avoids substantiating them, and you seem to be stupid enough to think that people won’t notice.

              Hasn’t anyone ever pointed out why doing that gets recipients irritated….

              • queenstfarmer …
                8 March 2012 at 1:14 am

                The information backs up my point entirely, which was that “the Auckland port is comparatively inefficient”. Not necessarily inefficient per se, but comparatively. Which is why Len Brown & Co backed the management’s push to improve that situation. You have cast aspersions on the stats by describing it as “dubious” – seemingly on the basis of asking two questions (the answers to which I don’t have), but which is hardly grounds for discrediting it, and certainly not a “tearing apart”, and to which my pre-buttal was that it beggars credibility that the union would willingly distribute inaccurate information.

                a hackneyed debating tactic

                Not sure what that was, but I see you have followed up with a good old ad hominem.

                • Colonial Viper …
                  8 March 2012 at 1:22 am

                  The economy will be far more efficient when we get rid of NZ workers and bring in Chinese and Korean ones who will work for $13.50/day. We do it on the boats, why not do it in the ports.

                  • rosy …
                    8 March 2012 at 1:31 am

                    You read like you might think that idea is a bit far-fetched, CV …

                  • muzza …
                    8 March 2012 at 7:08 am

                    Already well underway in many retail shops, salons etc. I can tell you for a fact that many shops are paying cash per hour less than minimum wage, shops owned by asians, and non asian alike. The common denominator that I have noticed, is that they are taking advantage of asian students, and others who do not know we have laws to potect workers somewhat, and they are happy to have some money. This of course is not only illegal, but bad for society in NZ as a whole
                    Some of the shops are in parts of auckand you might not expect that sort of behaviour, but then again greed is universal it seems, with the vulnerable losing out most.

                    NZ is long gone folks!

                • lprent …
                  8 March 2012 at 8:27 am

                  Anything is whatever if you cherry pick a single statistic and ignore context. In this case the crane rate, which measures movements per hour when working on a ship. Of course if you don’t have a ship to work on, then the rate is zero. From what I can see, this happens far more frequently at Tauranga than Auckland.

                  A more useful measure of productivity would be the monthly or annual movements per crane. That would indicate the productivity on a major piece of capital equipment. A per hour rate on low use equipment is what you do when you want to fudge your performance. Using a flawed performance stat like that means that you cause a distortion in where effort in improving efficiency goes. It wouldn’t surprise me if Tauranga’s managers spend excessive amounts of time trying to increase their crane rate, because it is easier than increasing the number of vessels or containers being processed. But it is one of those stats that looks great in presentations to the credulous.

                  Being careful about what you measure performance against to prevent effort distortions was old news when I was training in operations back in my MBA 25 years ago.

                  I like doing ‘ad hominen’ attacks when people waste my time with diversion tactics that were old when I was young on the nets. In this case, ignoring any substantive comment I made and trying to tell me what I really ‘said’ on a topic of your choosing. Typically a tactic followed when wanting to avoid the issues and divert into a flame.

                  I find that abusing fuckwits doing that discourages repitition. You may not like it but I don’t care. If it gets the desired result, it is productive.

                  Now of course it is going to be interesting which of the two topics I just discussed tha you want to pursue… Both are now about productivity and how you measure it. 😈

      • Rosemary 8.2.2
        7 March 2012 at 4:44 pm

        Interesting how Odgers hasn’t responded to the demolition of her numbers. She just squirmed, predictably, with a ‘I’ve done my bit, now you go do your own research. I’m not going to do your work for you’. She’s such a tosser.

  9. infused 9
    7 March 2012 at 11:58 am

    Read the stuff comments. No one supports the Union

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/6536688/Ports-of-Auckland-wharfies-made-redundant

    Welcome to the real world fellas.

    Brings back the memories of Dunlops.

    • idlegus 9.1
      7 March 2012 at 12:03 pm

      are you reading the same comments as me dumbarse? theres plenty of support for the unions, liar. im quite heartened, all the union supporters have empathy, all the haters come across as ignorant thickos.

      • Craig Glen Eden 9.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 12:12 pm

        The real world where Kiwis move to Australia to do the same job for a better wage with strong Union support. Or back to the future with infused and his ilk stuffing small children down chimneys!

    • burt 9.2
      7 March 2012 at 12:17 pm

      infused

      There is a mix of comments – really there is.

      However the one I really liked was something like; Interestingly the union reps still have their jobs.

      That’s the point isn’t it – who really stands to lose the most here ? Who’s the puppet in the bigger political/ideological struggle.

    • framu 9.3
      7 March 2012 at 12:20 pm

      you mean all those comments that show the person speaking doesnt even know what the dispute was about? those ones?

      its like claiming talk back as an accurate barometer of public opinion

  10. Jackal 10
    7 March 2012 at 12:08 pm

    Discrimination against Unionists is the problem. It’s also a breach of the Employment Relations Act 2000:

    (6) It is a breach of subsection (1) for an employer to advise, or to do anything with the intention of inducing, an employee—
    (a) not to be involved in bargaining for a collective agreement; or
    (b) not to be covered by a collective agreement.

    Sacking all the union workers because POAL want them on individual contracts is a breach of good faith in employment relations outlined in the Act.

    (a) the union and the employer must use their best endeavours to enter into an arrangement, as soon as possible after the initiation of bargaining, that sets out a process for conducting the bargaining in an effective and efficient manner.

    Clearly POAL has not been trying to resolve the matter. They have continued to follow their illegal plan that was made public. It’s a pity the MSM have not picked up on this all important fact. That plan showed that POAL set out to intentionally breach the Employment Relations Act:

    (iii) [POAL and MUNZ] must not undermine or do anything that is likely to undermine the bargaining or the authority of the other in the bargaining.

    I have seen no evidence that the strikes have been unlawful.

    • Gosman 10.1
      7 March 2012 at 12:50 pm

      So when’s the court case scheduled for Jackal? Wellington Port management managed to get an urgent employment court hearing to force the workers back to work. Why is it so difficult for MUNZ to get a hearing over this bad faith bargaining issue? Any further delay and they won’t be in a position to force anyone to negotiate at all.

      • Jackal 10.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 1:03 pm

        I don’t think there’s a time constraint regarding taking a case to determine a breach of good faith. It is likely that each Union member will take a case individually and that the cost outlined by POAL in their plan to intentionally breach the Employment Relations Act was grossly underestimated.

        • Te Reo Putake 10.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 1:26 pm

          Dead right, Jackal. The court will hear the case, if it’s taken, when the court feels like hearing it. Urgent injunctions are required to be heard ASAP, but good faith behaviour cases are clearly not urgent and the penalties are derisory anyway. What Gosman can’t get his head around is that this is an industrial dispute, not a legal one. The legal matters bubble along behind the scenes and are not an replacement for fighting directly against the POAL anti-union and privatisation agenda.

    • Bazar 10.2
      7 March 2012 at 10:51 pm

      All of those points listed don’t apply.

      The POAL isn’t preventing them from forming a collective agreement, nor is it forcing them to individual contracts. In fact it even tried to get them to sign a collective agreement multiple times.

      In the end, its simply decided to made them redundant.
      They can form their collective contracts with anyone who will now employ them.

      The only legal hope the union have is if they can convince the court that the POAL negotiated in bad faith. But i think that its more likely to snow in hell.
      I think its far more more likely that POAL can prove the union acted in bad faith, and one of the parties most involved in the matter, the mayor, seems to be siding with POAL as much.

      • Colonial Viper 10.2.1
        7 March 2012 at 11:02 pm

        Thanks for the lies, they were very entertaining. You missed the part about the primary goal of the POAL to destroy MUNZ at any cost.

        In the end, its simply decided to made them redundant.

        It decided this at the start, actually.

  11. Frank Macskasy 11
    7 March 2012 at 12:11 pm

    The time for negotiations has long passed. Employers – whether AFFCO or PoAL – have no intention to negotiate.

    If employers can treat “Good faith bargaining” as a sham then workers need to fight fire-with-fire. The time for reasonable negotiations has finished; employers aren’t interested, so why should we play their ‘game’?

    It’s time to play hard-ball;

    1. Ignore Court orders to return to work.
    2. A return to wild-cat strikes.
    3. Send an urgent request for international assistance.

    If workers lose this one, it will be the 1980s/90s all over again.

    • burt 11.1
      7 March 2012 at 12:26 pm

      4) MUNZ to establish it’s own port where it can dictate all employment conditions and choose which ships it loads and unloads. (will the contents of containers require extra items on the manifest to stipulate the union affiliation of the people who loaded them as well ?)

    • Gosman 11.2
      7 March 2012 at 12:37 pm

      Brilliant! I can just imagine the assets of the Union’s involved in this being seized in compensation and Union members being locked up. It would also play into those people who suggest Unions are disruptive and break the law. It would hand a PR coup to those on the right of the political spectrum. You may as well advocate for a revolution Frank. Bravo.

      • Jackal 11.2.1
        7 March 2012 at 12:52 pm

        Union members being locked up for refusing to work? You’re such a Nazi Gosman.

        • Gosman 11.2.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 1:10 pm

          Ahhhhh…..no.

          Not for refusing to work but for breaking the law. People do get locked up for that occassionally I hear.

          I’m also not advocating for this. I am merely pointing out that I can imagine this happening if people were foolish enough to follow Frank’s advice.

          Do you disagree that breaking he law in the way’s he suggests could possibly have those outcomes I postulated?

      • Frank Macskasy 11.2.2
        8 March 2012 at 10:53 am

        “…and Union members being locked up.”

        And how many people do you think New Zealand prison cells can hold, Gosman? They’re already at capacity – where will the 300, 500, 1,000, 10,000 cells come from?

        The Soviet Union and South Africa tried locking up their dissidents – and failed.

        Bring it on, Gosman, and you may learn a new lesson in life.

        • Gosman 11.2.2.1
          8 March 2012 at 3:23 pm

          Go for it Frank. Somehow I doubt many people are going to take you up on this. Then you can blame some aspect of neo-liberalism for your failure. You can say how it has made people apathetic because it will deflect attention away from your silly suggestion falling flat on it’s arse. I am waiting to be astounded though Frank so start the process of filling up the prisons.

          BTW you keep avoiding my questions about the Gdansk shipyards and when you are doing a blog post on the outcome of Solidarity winning the right to form an independent Union in Poland.

          • Frank Macskasy 11.2.2.1.1
            8 March 2012 at 4:23 pm

            Deflection.

            You avoided the issue with your side-step.

            Try answering my question: And how many people do you think New Zealand prison cells can hold, Gosman? They’re already at capacity – where will the 300, 500, 1,000, 10,000 cells come from?

  12. framu 12
    7 March 2012 at 12:32 pm

    mayor in the chair this saturday Friday @ auckland uni

    Friday 9 March 2012
    Auckland University
    12 noon-1pm

    [lprent: Fixed error ]

    • burt 12.1
      7 March 2012 at 12:42 pm

      framu

      Not trying to be picky…. But is it Saturday or Friday ?

      • framu 12.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 12:46 pm

        ahh – whoops – must be friday – the last 3 lines are cut n past from the council website.

        looked at my calendar and just jumped to saturday in my head. (must… proof… read… before… hitting… submit)

        well spotted burt, cheers

        mods – can you fix my error? or ammend a comment?

    • shreddakj 12.2
      7 March 2012 at 2:20 pm

      Len Brown is also supposed to be at Khartoum place (I believe that is the square with the mural of the suffragettes between Lorne and Kitchener streets) on Thursday from 12:30 till 2:30 for International Womens Day. Though I wouldn’t want to spoil that event.

      Facebook event page for it:
      http://www.facebook.com/events/268278086574785/

  13. Kevin 13
    7 March 2012 at 12:43 pm

    Don Baird of Mainfreight was correct in his statement that POAL has suffered from a lack of investment capital, however not all the profits were siphoned off to susidise rates, considerable amounts were redircted by the ARC to purchase land surrounding Auckland for landbanking and conservation interests.
    Don was however totally wrong on his criticism of the potential of Northport at Marsden Point which he described as ludicrous.
    Northport is by far the only port close to Auckland that has development potential, Tauranga will always be handicapped by geography, and Auckland will be costrained by land use limitations.
    Mike Daniel, a former chairman of Northport, has consistently clearly identified Northports potential, but has lacked political and business support.
    Northland could well do with the employment and development opportunities that a port redevelopment can offer and Northland has the capacity.
    Don Baird of Mainfreight could well be protecting his patch by advocating for POAL’S development, including Tauranga, but in reality both of those options are limited.
    However on the subject of POAL sacking their employee’s, this irrational move will futher exacerbate a difficult relationship port companies nationwide have with their staff and will no doubt lead to industrial action being taken by unions the length and breadth of this country spanning a number of industries.
    POAL have asked for a scrap and no doubt they will get one. With consideration to yesterdays decision by Auckland Council to review POAL, this decision by POAL to sack it’s staff is a disingenous knee jerk reaction to that decision and contains more spite than good business sense. The decision to sack the staff will be serving up the proverbial poisoned chalice to Len Brown.

  14. Gosman 14
    7 March 2012 at 12:43 pm

    Weirdly I don’t understand why the left is having such a difficulty on this issue. It is a no brainer. The people of Auckland are the ‘evil’ capitalists who the management of the Ports of Auckland are ultimately responsible to.

    Cut all this talk of Employment court cases, (by the way still no word on that bad faith bargaining case I see), and occupying the port/management property. Simply direct pressure on Len Brown and his council.

    You remember Len Brown don’t you? He was that left leaning candidate that I believe a lot of lefties were quite happy when he was elected Mayor of the new Super City. Change his mind and change that of other council members and this problem is resolved as simple as that.

    • tc 14.1
      7 March 2012 at 1:18 pm

      you know very well Rortneys supershity is setup so that he’s very little control, they thought it was going to be Blinky who shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the controls.

      ‘change that of other council members and this problem is resolved as simple as that..’ hilarious like Fletcher, Quax, Brewer etc….funny man Gossie..

      • Gosman 14.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 1:37 pm

        The reporting line of the POAL managment is clear enough. It leads back to the Mayor and council of Auckland and thus ultimately to the people of Auckland. Even a public pronoucement from the Mayor and council stating that they think this is not in the best interests of the city should be enough to put pressure on the management. They would then have to answer the question why they are going against the wishes of their owners.

    • shreddakj 14.2
      7 March 2012 at 2:16 pm

      Len Brown is a fraud. We need a real left candidate who cares about the working class and the poor of this city.

      • Gosman 14.2.1
        7 March 2012 at 2:24 pm

        Quite possibly.

        Now at least you know where to direct your anger and where the focus of your efforts should be. Take up the suggestion of framu above and attend the Mayor in the chair event this Friday. Get answers to the questions you seek from the man in charge.

        • Uturn 14.2.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 2:31 pm

          But do you know where to direct your anger and where the focus of your efforts should be? That’s the big question you ask yourself, when you ask others. It isn’t here, gosman, is it.

          Find who is in charge of your life, gosman. You’re making excellent progress!

    • queenstfarmer 14.3
      7 March 2012 at 3:01 pm

      Cut all this talk of Employment court cases, (by the way still no word on that bad faith bargaining case I see)

      Well it has only been a few hours, what do you expect? If there has been bad faith (which presumably the Union will insist there has been) then it will surely mount a challenge. It will present its evidence of bad faith, the Port will present its evidence opposing that, and we’ll all be able to see the evidence.

      The court cases to date (re the “sympathy strikes”) have shown that it is the unions’ who have broken the law over this issue, so I expect they will want to get their ducks lined up before another round of court action.

  15. Uturn 15
    7 March 2012 at 1:26 pm

    Gosman and others are right.

    The law is scarey. Don’t do anything. Just lay down and die. Watch your family fall apart under the stress. You’re just a poor scum who should be squashed like a fly.

    Or you can tell them all to get fucked and fight back.

    Anyway, good to see you back gosman, now about yesterday…

    It’s interesting how you switched from brooding resentful child voice to overbearing adult voice. I’m sorry to hear that, gosman, old pal. What can we do for you. You’re in pain, clearly. A roadmap? An emotional road map – would that help? Maybe. If you trusted people not to send you down the wrong road. You want to reach out, but people have betrayed your trust so many times now you think that they are incapable of realising that they are really just drawing you in closer to make it easier to hurt you.

    And the material gains, the money spent, it’s not working, eh gosman. Doesn’t matter if you redo the kitchen or buy a new car or get on the piss. The cat is out of the bag. What to do… what to do… You could do nothing, but can you do it somewhere else? Like, not on this blog? When I mean do nothing, just let it catch up with you, all the stuff you repress. It’ll catch you anyway if you keep running. Find yourself someone to check up on you and a secure situation and bunker down.

    And remember gosman, nothing you think is true. It’ll tell you all kinds of stuff that will seem completely believable, just don’t believe it and try to stay calm. I don’t know if you’ll be ok, but you have no choice so it doesn’t matter and thinking happy thoughts might be difficult when you are too frightened to think anything at all. You’ll be something once it’s done, though not the same, that’s for sure.

    • Gosman 15.1
      7 March 2012 at 1:34 pm

      LOL!

      You should really save this for the Dr Phil show.

      What I find especially funny, (other than your twee pop-psychology), is that even if you are correct you are essentially feeding me the perfect material for an outlet for my ‘issues’. I guess that’s better than spending thousands on therapy. I’m almost tempted to ask you for a bill.

      • Uturn 15.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 1:39 pm

        Gosman is such a broody one! Listen to him deny human contact. They – broody teens – believe realism excludes the possiblity of balance. So we’ve narrowed it down to an event in your teenage years. Come on Gosman, we’re dying to know. I promise not to send a bill.

        • Gosman 15.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 1:51 pm

          I once met David Caygill at an award ceremony back in 1988. Perhaps that was it…

          • Uturn 15.1.1.1.1
            7 March 2012 at 1:58 pm

            No that isn’t it. That man was your friend. You know what happens when you lie, right Gosman? But it’s nice to know we are a similar age. Isn’t that nice gosman? The man we’re looking for corrupted your “ceremony”. Come now Gosman, make it snappy.

            • Gosman 15.1.1.1.1.1
              7 March 2012 at 2:18 pm

              No, he did corrupt my ceremony. Just by being there. I was expecting someone else. It was all terribly traumatic. I really don’t want to go into the details…

              • Uturn …
                7 March 2012 at 2:30 pm

                But you must gosman. Don’t you see, you spreading your self loathing all round this site just isn’t helping anyone, must I chase every comment you post just to get you to talk?

                • McFlock …
                  7 March 2012 at 2:35 pm

                  Tragic – there the young Randian superhero was, a new initiate to the neoliberal cult eagerly waiting to kneel before the high priest of his sociopathic religion, but instead of Roger Douglas he only meets Caygill.
                      
                  Must have been traumatising, realising that the world didn’t recognise his brilliance. Trauma long since repressed by the overwhelming desperation of an undeserved ego.

                  • Tiger Mountain …
                    7 March 2012 at 2:47 pm

                    Heh, Gozzie a classic “rabi blanco” as certain South americans might say. G’s 12:43 comment was accurate though despite my dislike of his world view. The facts do emerge, convenient or not. Labour is a class collaborationist party and “war zone” Shearer needs to get up on his hind legs or its all over Rover.

  16. shreddakj 16
    7 March 2012 at 2:14 pm

    I think a port blockade is what we need now.

  17. Pete 17
    7 March 2012 at 2:29 pm

    There are no jobs for life, lads. You might want it that way, but it isn’t that way, and hasn’t been for decades now. If you don’t like the terms and conditions on offer, and plenty do, then go and get another job.

    The Union has blown their own heads off. So much for producing positive outcomes for workers.

  18. Pete 18
    7 March 2012 at 2:31 pm

    There are no jobs for life, lads. You might want it that way, but it isn’t that way, and hasn’t been for decades now. If you don’t like the terms and conditions on offer, and plenty do, then go and get another job.

    The Union has blown their own heads off. So much for producing positive outcomes for workers.

    • Craig Glen Eden 18.1
      7 March 2012 at 2:44 pm

      The other option for the Union was to take what the Boss demands/offers no matter how bad? Thats not negotiation. It may seem all big and tough but I will be surprised if they get away with it in the employment court.
      The Union is not to blame Pete they stood up for their members and there working conditions, if a boss has a plan and we all know this boss did to make the work force redundant no matter what, how is that the Unions fault?

      • Roflcopter 18.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 3:17 pm

        The other option for the Boss was to take what the Union demands/offers no matter how bad? Thats not negotiation. It may seem all big and tough but I will be surprised if they get away with it in the employment court.
        The Boss is not to blame Pete they stood up for their shareholders and city council demands, if a Union has a plan and we all know this Union did to make sure they still got their cut of worker wages no matter what, how is that the Boss’s fault?

        FIFY…

        • muzza 18.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 3:44 pm

          What was the unions plan then, you seem to know all about it?

          While youre there go do some reading…Here are some staring points

          SOI, PBE, POE, ACIL…

  19. Conway Captain 19
    7 March 2012 at 2:49 pm

    The port has been starved of capital by Mike Lee and et al taking millions out of it to fund his pet projects,

    Compared to TGA AKL has always been inefficient way back to the 70’s in the days of conventional shipping. I have worked both ports in the 70’s 80’s and 90’s

    • Tiger Mountain 19.1
      7 March 2012 at 3:12 pm

      Hey, “Captain Conway”, if it was not for the Alliance’s Bruce Jesson and Mike Lee the Auckland docks would have been sold off decades ago. You present indeed as having worked your passage at the ports.

  20. Tiger Mountain 20
    7 March 2012 at 2:59 pm

    ‘Pete’ illustrates the relevance of Jack London’s “Ode to the Scab” even in our 21st century setting. On the face of it a somewhat archaic piece but it remains true. Taking food from the tables of families whose earners dare to organise and desire, shock horror, a full time job!

    The contractors, dependent contractors and stevedores are all minor league scabs. The real deal are the likes of the 100 scabs that dirty filthy Talleys have herded at Moerewa Affco in the Far North, in a high unemployment environment of course.

    I agree with Dave, Occupy the Port.

  21. Pete 21
    7 March 2012 at 3:18 pm

    The use of the term “scab” is curious. It’s a bullying term. It’s about hating someone simply because they choose to work under the offered conditions when you do not.

    Nice.

    Meanwhile, in 2012, if the employer needs to restructure, then they restructure. Workers may not like the new terms, and that is fine, but their choice then becomes to either accept the new conditions or go somewhere else where the working conditions are more to their liking. From what I can see, they were on top whack for such lowly skilled work and they blew it.

    Silly.

    All businesses change. Requirements change. Technology changes. Supply and demand changes. Jobs change.

    Wishing it weren’t so doesn’t make it so. The POA is not a charity for workers.

    • muzza 21.1
      7 March 2012 at 3:49 pm

      “The POA is not a charity for workers” – No but its PBE, which means it is there with a wider socially factoring set of deliverables, than just making profit..

      Maybe go do some reading too, before your job gets casualised!

      • Pete 21.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 3:58 pm

        My job has been “casualised” since before I started 20 years ago. Never been out of work. Been paid and treated well. I have never been part of a Union. I have been a contractor most of that time.

        The key is to provide something employers are willing to pay for, and to do it so well they value you more than they value looking for someone “cheaper”.

        • Colonial Viper 21.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 4:05 pm

          The key is to provide something employers are willing to pay for, and to do it so well they value you more than they value looking for someone “cheaper”.

          Good strategy, exactly what I have done as well, too bad its not going to work en masse for each of the 50,000 young people out there chasing the same burger flipping McJob.

          Never been out of work.

          Why lucky you. Doesn’t apply to about a million other NZers though does it.

          • Pete 21.1.1.1.1
            7 March 2012 at 4:46 pm

            Nothing to do with luck and everything to do with providing needed skills in high demand.

            • Kotahi Tane Huna 21.1.1.1.1.1
              7 March 2012 at 5:10 pm

              Everything to do with luck, and nothing to do with your illusory superiority.

              • infused …
                7 March 2012 at 5:27 pm

                Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s supply and demand.

                • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                  7 March 2012 at 5:37 pm

                  Illusory superiority, with a double-helping of the Dunning-Kruger effect. Look at you, thinking your expertise in your limited chosen field makes you an expert on economics and Labour law, whereas in fact you are a parrot, if your arguments are anything to go by.

                  • Pete …
                    7 March 2012 at 8:09 pm

                    I am superior in my field. Are you suggesting all workers in any given field are equally productive/skilled/valuable?

                    I didn’t claim to be an expert on economics or labour law. Straw man, sir.

                    What I am saying is that these workers, and their Union, appear to have vastly overrated their value to the company, given that there appear to be no shortage of workers *happy* to work under the new conditions offered. That means these jobs are likely paid at a higher rate than the alternatives available to them.

                • Lanthanide …
                  7 March 2012 at 6:00 pm

                  And being lucky enough that you are one who can supply that demand. Obviously.

                  I mean if you got hit by a car and had to spend 2 years learning to walk again, that might just screw up your career and job prospects, eh?

                  • Pete …
                    7 March 2012 at 7:50 pm

                    Not really, so long as my mind and fingers work.

                    So you’re saying my achievement is luck because I *didn’t* suffer a personal tragedy? In that case, everything we ever achieve must be down to “luck”.

                    The thinking of people who see themselves as powerless victims, I guess. No wonder the left appeals….

        • muzza 21.1.1.2
          7 March 2012 at 4:12 pm

          Pete, it sounds to me like your personal bias of casualisation not having affected you, is leading your judgement of others. This is a schoolboy error, and one you and others I read make, it really is small-minded of you!

          “The key is to provide something employers are willing to pay for, and to do it so well they value you more than they value looking for someone “cheaper”.

          Don’t be smug Pete, there is always someone who can do it at least as well, for cheaper, and it feels to me that few industries will be out of reach of the “cut”. It only takes one change in the “org chart”, and that goes right out the window!

          PS – Go do that reading, then go talk to some warfies, and educate yourself!

          • Pete 21.1.1.2.1
            7 March 2012 at 5:03 pm

            In my field, a good worker is easily worth five average workers. Less overhead, and I can solve complex problems faster.

            So, no, they are unlikely to be able to replace me “cheaper”. I feel I offer employers a strong value proposition. Some may call it arrogance, I guess. One could call it a worker in a strong position relative to the employer.

            That did not happen by accident. It was not luck. It was due to hard work, willingness to work around the world, and love and pride in the work.

            • mickysavage 21.1.1.2.1.1
              7 March 2012 at 5:27 pm

              So ever work on a Wharf Pete?  And can you say for sure that the current Stevedores are only a fifth as efficient as these supposed supermen you talk about?

              • Pete …
                7 March 2012 at 7:56 pm

                Straw man, Sir. Where did I say they were only a fifth as efficient?

                • mickysavage …
                  7 March 2012 at 8:38 pm

                  When you said “In my field, a good worker is easily worth five average workers.”  Obviously not quite the same but you said it so you must have at least wanted to imply that it was relevant for the port situation.  

                  And I wonder at your name Pete.  I don’t think I have seen you around here before.  And someone else called “Conway Captain” pops up and you both start trolling.  And then POAL blames CTU’s Pete Conway for allegedly torpedoing the talks, as if.

                  Are you guys on CT duty? 

                  • Bazar …
                    8 March 2012 at 12:18 am

                    Thinking isn’t you’re strong suit is it micky?
                    Let me use simple words so you can keep up with this conversation:

                    Muzza suggested that there is always someone who’ll work for cheaper

                    Pete suggested that while there are cheaper workers, in his case hes worth consideribly more to an employer due to work quality

                    You joined in, creating a strawman.

                    Pete corrected you.

                    You’re now trolling, derailing the thread, and proving how unable you are to read a basic conversation.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 1:23 pm

                      Correct Bazar.

                      Mikey, I was responding to someone who falsely stated there is “always” someone who will do the same work cheaper. If this were so, then I’m not sure why they employ me, as my rate is high. If they could indeed get someone cheaper, they would do so.

                      The reality is that I provide a high level of value i.e. I can “ship faster”.

                      You then derail, then go on to attack the messenger.

                    • McFlock …
                      8 March 2012 at 1:34 pm

                      Mikey, I was responding to someone who falsely stated there is “always” someone who will do the same work cheaper. If this were so, then I’m not sure why they employ me, as my rate is high. If they could indeed get someone cheaper, they would do so.

                      Of course, that assumes that your employers have perfect information about the labour market, do not have structural incentives to work less efficiently (if they fire all their staff and contract out, will they themselves still have a job?), and do not have a conceptual bias towards what they think works well now (i.e. employing you because you look like a good bloke and a colleague recommended you, as opposed to just contracting the entire project to India or Aus via the internet – or other-industry equivalent).
                             

                       

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 3:26 pm

                      No one has perfect information, so no, I do not assume they have perfect information.

                      They could outsource software development to India, and some do, but I think you’ll find the reason many choose not to do this is for quality reasons. It turned out that the ability to speak English well, and to understand local concepts, norms and the business environment play a significant role in terms of productivity.

                      Software does have a cultural bias.

                    • McFlock …
                      8 March 2012 at 3:32 pm

                      So you are not the most cost-effective employee on the planet for your employment sector?

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 4:16 pm

                      “So you are not the most cost-effective employee on the planet for your employment sector?”

                      Didn’t say I was. What I said was I provide value.

                      I work an area where vacancies can be open for six months at a time. I suspect the reason employers find it difficult to fill these positions is that too many people in this country study Sociology, Dolphinology and – even worse – Law, and not enough study Engineering, Science and Maths.

                      So I’m the most cost effective employee they have walking through their door in Wellington at this moment in time, which is a quality they deem to be important.

                    • McFlock …
                      8 March 2012 at 5:45 pm

                       So I’m the most cost effective employee they have walking through their door in Wellington at this moment in time, which is a quality they deem to be important. 

                      In short: there is someone cheaper than you, but your employer’s choices are arbitrarily limited. So the reason they employ you at a higher rate is a result of their imperfect information (there’s almost certainly someone who will do the job to an efficient standard for less money, even in Wellington) and their own arbitrary self-limitations (e.g. only employing Wellingtonians).

            • muzza 21.1.1.2.1.2
              8 March 2012 at 7:16 am

              So you work on a computer doing something, big deal Pete. While I have no question to ask of how you got where you are, thats no concern of mine, good luck to you, I do question your smarmy attitude towards the warfies…Why are you and others so opinionated on what affects other peoples livelihoods – Have acrack at answering that !

              People with your view are a liability to society, and play a major role in the degredation of it, but attitudes like this!

              • Pete …
                8 March 2012 at 1:28 pm

                The pay offer looks good, and it appears many people think so, too, so then I wonder about the Union’s strategy. Where was the leverage? Pulling labour when positions are easily filled can’t possibly work.

                Perhaps they did it on ideological grounds. Perhaps they’re just stuck in the past and have no new ideas. I don’t know.

                Secondly, port strikes affect everyone, so, yes, I will have a say.

                I’m a liability to society? I degrade society? How so, Sir?

                • muzza …
                  8 March 2012 at 1:47 pm

                  “The pay offer looks good, and it appears many people think so” – Still not providing links Pete, just soundbites!

                  Can’t comment on the strategy, as I dont know enough about the inner goings on there…perhaps they did get it wrong, but more likely from what I saw and heard, first hand Pete, not in the papers or online, was that the infighting at auckland council indicates the PoAL was given an agenda to casualize, and break the union. The longer term aim as far as I can put together via emails which illustrate the infighting between the councilors, is the removal of the port fom its current location.

                  You can have your say Pete, but its from ignorance, because you have not bothered to involved yourself in any way , other than that of a commentator, and passer of judgement against people you don’t even know! – people with views such as yours don’t get involved in a useful capacity, becuase you are too busy fellating yourself online!

                  “I’m a liability to society? I degrade society? How so, Sir?” – I said people with views such as yours. And yes views such as yours contribute to the drive to the bottom, which is exactly what NZ is going to get, and then way Pete, Johannesberg like perhaps!

                • Pete …
                  8 March 2012 at 3:30 pm

                  How do you explain the POT? If contracting is really so bad, shouldn’t that port be a mess? Shouldn’t workers be unhappy?

                  What do you think of their employees/contractors owning shares? I think it is a good initiative.

                  • muzza …
                    8 March 2012 at 5:01 pm

                    POT have had 3 people die in the last 18 months, so if thats an indication of how well it works, then it looks like a poor model to me!

                    Nah but its all about the money, and driving wages costs down. In case you didn’t notice the wages percentage at POT was slightly higher than PoAL….looking at it purely from % of wage costs.

                    Try answering some questions Pete before you come in with any more yourself!

        • Craig Glen Eden 21.1.1.3
          7 March 2012 at 4:13 pm

          Pete lay down years ago aye he had no choice, he took what the boss would give him, he is so bitter because others have conditions he really wants.

          Pete aye the sorry arse contractor.

          Wait for it its his own business!!!!!!!!!! He’s his own boss.

          • Pete 21.1.1.3.1
            7 March 2012 at 4:53 pm

            I enjoy contracting. In my field, the permanents are lower skilled. To be a contractor, you need solid experience and needed skills. I get paid my benefits up front. After 20 years of it, I no longer have to work.

            I pick the contracts *I* want, when I want. I prefer the easy life these days, so I now work three month contracts once or twice a year.

            Employers are very lucky to have me. That is the truth. I call the shots.

            • Kotahi Tane Huna 21.1.1.3.1.1
              7 March 2012 at 5:02 pm

              Luck. lol: yes that’s right – luck is your only point of difference. At least you see that.

              • Pete …
                7 March 2012 at 5:05 pm

                No, it has nothing to do with luck and everything to do with providing value.

                • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                  7 March 2012 at 5:16 pm

                  No, it has everything to do with luck and nothing to do with your illusions: how do you suppose you found yourself in a position to provide better services? Of course it is because you are an Übermensch, so much better than everyone else. On your planet.

                  • Pete …
                    7 March 2012 at 5:25 pm

                    I suppose passing the University courses was all “luck”? Felt like hard work to me.
                    Working hard on products and delivering them well? Felt like hard work to me.
                    Being offered contract renewal wherever I have worked? Felt like hard work to me.

                    The harder I work, the more luck I have.

                    I am better than many of my peers. Software development is like that – throwing more and more bodies at a problem often produces poor outcomes. Throwing one person who knows what they are doing produces a lot of value.

                    Lotus outgunned Microsoft in groupware many moons ago. The Lotus development team could fit on one room, whereas Microsoft filled buildings trying to compete. They filled the buildings with headless chooks.

                  • Pete …
                    7 March 2012 at 5:26 pm

                    I suppose passing the University courses was all “luck”? Felt like hard work to me.
                    Working hard on products and delivering them well? Felt like hard work to me.
                    Being offered contract renewal wherever I have worked? Felt like hard work to me.

                    The harder I work, the more luck I have.

                    I am better than many of my peers. Software development is like that – throwing more and more bodies at a problem often produces poor outcomes. Throwing one person who knows what they are doing produces a lot of value.

                    Lotus outgunned Microsoft in groupware many moons ago. The Lotus development team could fit on one room, whereas Microsoft filled buildings trying to compete. They filled the buildings with headless chooks.

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      7 March 2012 at 5:41 pm

                      Wow. You really are an Übermensch. Please sir, if it might help your mightiness, do you think it wise to pay attention to what the fuck occurs outside your bubble?

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      8 March 2012 at 12:59 am

                      The arrogance of the right wing nutjob… Self-parody at it’s best.

                      Such comments as yours could only be posted on a political Blog, Pete. Because in polite company, if you dared repeat sentiments such as you’ve expressed here – you’d be shown the door.

                      ACT supporters such as yourself should not be surprised at being known as the 1.1 Percent Party.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 9:08 am

                      I think you’ve failed to grasp the point I’m making.

                      I’m a worker.I’m an empowered worker. I dictate terms and conditions to my employers, not the other way around.

                      Don’t you get it? THAT is what the successful working class looks like today. I am working class “Waitakere Man” – just operating in a different field to Trotters personification. My parents are working class. My grandparents were working class.

                      We work.

                      The fact I don’t need a Union talking for me, or Labour arguing against my interests should give you pause for thought.

                      No wonder you’re on 27% and sinking.

            • muzza 21.1.1.3.1.2
              7 March 2012 at 5:20 pm

              “Employers are very lucky to have me. That is the truth. I call the shots”

              Wow Pete, and so that gives you the right to pass down judgement on those less fortuitous than you then!

              • Pete …
                7 March 2012 at 5:29 pm

                From what I can see, they were largely replaceable workers on a very good package.

                If I were in such a position, I’d either make myself more valuable by upskilling (less replaceable), or be rather grateful to have such a job.

                • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                  7 March 2012 at 6:02 pm

                  Soci woci was not liked
                  Soci woci on his bike
                  Soci woci took a dosy
                  Then he wasn’t soci, wosi?

                  • Pete …
                    7 March 2012 at 6:14 pm

                    “Wow. You really are an Übermensch. Please sir, if it might help your mightiness, do you think it wise to pay attention to what the fuck occurs outside your bubble?”

                    I thought you’d be all for empowered workers? I am one. There are more effective ways to empower oneself than to join a Union.

                    I looked outside my bubble. I was surprised such low skilled workers, earning so much, complained so loudly.

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      7 March 2012 at 6:36 pm

                      Um, politics of envy much? #deskyourface

                    • Pete …
                      7 March 2012 at 7:16 pm

                      Are you saying I envy them based on their pay?

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      8 March 2012 at 12:53 am

                      Workers on hundred tonne; multi-million dollar cranes are “low skilled”?!

                      I guess you haven’t piloted one of those behemoths, have you , Pete?

                      Anyway, BERL disagrees with your Weetbix packet “economic assessment”; http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/6141781/Blue-collar-workers-vital-to-economy-Berl

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 8:57 am

                      Many jobs on the wharf are low-skill/semi skilled.

                      “There are no specific entry requirements to become a stevedore, as you gain skills on the job.

                      However, employers usually prefer you to have a driver’s licence because most jobs on wharves involve driving vehicles.

                      A Class 2 (heavy vehicle) driver’s licence with an F endorsement (allowing the vehicle to be driven on public roads) is the minimum needed to drive heavy vehicles such as straddle carriers and large fork-lifts.

                      Some employers may require you to pass a medical test.”

                      I don’t know how you’re taken that to mean I think low/semi skilled workers are therefore not economicly valuable?

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      8 March 2012 at 9:39 am

                      People are lining up to apply? You know this, not.

                      You have no conception of the skills involved. You think you do, but you don’t. You don’t know how much the pay rates are either. You think you do, but you don’t.

                      But even if you did, it would still be none of your damn business, and you’d still leave me wondering just what is it about you that makes you happy to see others have their wages fall. Most commenters seem to think it is a symptom of some sort of psychotic disorder.

                      Any thoughts?

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 1:31 pm

                      I just got those details from an employment website profiling stevedores.

                      Kotahi, you too are introducing straw mans. Where did I argue I want people’s wages to drop, Sir?

                      Take a look at POT. Workers have shares in the company. Now that is a great way forward.

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      8 March 2012 at 1:43 pm

                      “Market forces. If people are willing to do it for less, then that becomes the going rate.”

                      Or was that some completely other ‘Pete’? Or perhaps you’d forgotten you typed that this morning.

                      People have an absolute right to freedom of association. Period. That means Unions are here to stay. Deal with it.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 3:34 pm

                      “Market forces. If people are willing to do it for less, then that becomes the going rate. Or was that some completely other ‘Pete’? Or perhaps you’d forgotten you typed that this morning”.

                      That is not arguing for wages to drop. The market sets the rate based on supply and demand. I suppose you have no objection when the market sets a *higher* value on labour than existed previously?

                      “People have an absolute right to freedom of association. Period. That means Unions are here to stay. Deal with it”.

                      Again with the straw mans, Sir. Where did I argue people don’t have a right to association, or join a Union?

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      8 March 2012 at 3:49 pm

                      Strawman, I made a statement, I couldn’t care less what line you’re parroting.

                      The ‘market’? You would make me laugh if the effects of your fantasies weren’t so inhuman. If there were a free market for labour, sympathy strikes would not be illegal, just for one example; your free market is deliberately tilted against citizens and owes more to the obscene and corrupt sale of New Zealanders by the National Party than to any notion of fairness.

                      These notions are entirely foreign to you, or at least the lines you have learned to repeat. The ‘policies’ (what a joke to give them that title) you support cause untold misery and when this is pointed out to you what then? I doubt you give a toss.

                      Explain yourself. because so far as I am concerned there is no human excuse for your perversion of freedoms.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 4:28 pm

                      “Strawman, I made a statement, I couldn’t care less what line you’re parroting”.

                      Why do you say I am “parroting”, Sir? Your replies appear intellectually dishonest.

                      “The ‘market’? You would make me laugh if the effects of your fantasies weren’t so inhuman. If there were a free market for labour, sympathy strikes would not be illegal, just for one example; your free market is deliberately tilted against citizens and owes more to the obscene and corrupt sale of New Zealanders by the National Party than to any notion of fairness”.

                      The market is inhuman? Yes, what a travesty it is that people supply other people with goods they want at a price they wish to pay.

                      “These notions are entirely foreign to you, or at least the lines you have learned to repeat”.

                      I would confess to having read widely, and have adopted many ideas from great minds that went before me, so I bow down to your totally original concepts and ideas that I’ve heard for the very first time from you, although I have to say, they do sound an awful lot like LabGreenMana “lines” to me.

                      Perhaps that’s just a coincidence.

                      “The ‘policies’ (what a joke to give them that title) you support cause untold misery and when this is pointed out to you what then? I doubt you give a toss”.

                      Do they? Would that be why people were crawling over barbed wire and risking being shot to cross from East to West Germany? If you think New Zealand is a “misery” then I can only assume you have never travelled.

                      “Explain yourself. because so far as I am concerned there is no human excuse for your perversion of freedoms”.

                      I think that people providing people with what they want, at a fair price, is mostly a good idea.

                    • Kotahi Tane Huna …
                      8 March 2012 at 4:43 pm

                      How do I know you are a parrot? Because there is no evidence that anything you say is true. Therefore you have learned it from other people rather than observations.

                      You fool, people did not crawl to West Germany for neo-liberalism, and nor did they find it there.

                      The ‘market’ is not a ‘market’ when some are prevented from acting freely within it, but relax, I know you don’t grasp that concept, so don’t bother responding to it.

                      Your facile notions of human economic behaviour have been rejected by 99% of your peers (actually your superiors) but still you think they have currency? Truly pathetic.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 5:52 pm

                      “How do I know you are a parrot? Because there is no evidence that anything you say is true. Therefore you have learned it from other people rather than observations”.

                      My observation is that I’d rather live in New Zealand/Australia/US/UK than I would in Cuba. Market economies have provided enormous wealth and prosperity – that is my evidence.

                      So you’re wrong.

                      “You fool, people did not crawl to West Germany for neo-liberalism, and nor did they find it there”.

                      People crawled to West Germany to escape the bankrupt social and economic ideas of the far left.

                      “The ‘market’ is not a ‘market’ when some are prevented from acting freely within it, but relax, I know you don’t grasp that concept, so don’t bother responding to it”.

                      As you brought it up, I will respond to it. The less money you have, the less choice you have, but that doesn’t mean you have more choice in competing systems. Russia experienced supply shortages because they couldn’t use market signals, so that made most people equal – they were equally free to go without.

                      The political elite were always well supplied, of course.

                      “Your facile notions of human economic behaviour have been rejected by 99% of your peers (actually your superiors) but still you think they have currency? Truly pathetic”.

                      Have they? As far as I can see, all Douglases economic reforms are still in play.

                      Kiwis rejected your crusty, morally and economicly bankrupt socialism in the early 80s. And good riddance, Sir. Good riddance.

                • Frank Macskasy …
                  8 March 2012 at 12:55 am

                  “If I were in such a position, I’d either make myself more valuable by upskilling (less replaceable), or be rather grateful to have such a job.”

                  After which, Pete, your employers would simply replace you with cheaper labour, to keep costs down. You really haven’t thought this through, have you?

                  • Pete …
                    8 March 2012 at 8:53 am

                    Market forces. If people are willing to do it for less, then that becomes the going rate. But your objection is a disingenuous slippery slope. The new terms and conditions were very good which is the reason so many people are lining up to apply.

                    • muzza …
                      8 March 2012 at 9:15 am

                      “The new terms and conditions were very good which is the reason so many people are lining up to apply” – And how do you know these points you make Pete?

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      8 March 2012 at 9:45 am

                      So basically, “if people are willing to do it for less, then that becomes the going rate” becomes the new ‘norm’, then that results in ever-reducing wages?

                      So with companies now bringing in cheap labour from overseas (which even David Farrar seemed uneasy about: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10789313 ), we’d be competing with imported labour?

                      Is that the worldview you’re advocating?

                      It seems to me , Pete, that you’ve been successful in your business and made pots of money (which I don’t mind – good on you) – but now you’re advocating for a society of ever-decreasing wages; the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority; and people taking what they’re given, no argument?

                      Your ACT/Libertarian philosophy is seen as repugnant by 99% of New Zealanders (judging by ACT’s outstanding success at the polls last year) – and rightly so. Of course, that’s not stopping the Right Wing (National and certain Employers) from bringing in ACT ideology by stealth; under the public radar.

                      Well, they’re free to try it, I guess.

                      But… there’s always this pesky thing called the “Law of Unintended Consequences”, Pete… and I’m witnessing some very, very, Unintented Consequences happening; the developing militancy of a whole lot of ordinary New Zealanders. People are becoming radicalised – people who, up till now couldn’t give a toss about politics. (Including me, I might add. Next time around, I’ll be voting Mana instead of Greens, as I’m wanting some serious arse-kicking of Tories.) Well, people are certainly getting involved now.

                      It’s kinda like the Solidarnosc thing in Poland, in the early 1980s. Ordinary people had had enough of a system they felt was exploiting them, and they rose up.

                      The same is happening now; we’re seeing it nightly on our TV screens, and on the radio and in newspapers, and the Blogs; the increasing radicalisation of ordinary kiwis.

                      Come the next election, and change of government, Pete – which might be sooner than we think – the new Labour-Green-Mana government will have a shitload of work ahead of them.

                      First thing on the agenda; enacting legislation to strengthen the power of the Union movement. Because, mate, by the time Shearer is Prime Minister, New Zealanders will’ve have a gutsful of the Right Wing, and will be demanding a return to some measure of social justice. Just like it happened in the late 1990s; http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2012/03/07/history-lesson-ru-police/

                      It’s in our ‘DNA’, this social justice thing…

                  • Pete …
                    8 March 2012 at 3:50 pm

                    “So basically, “if people are willing to do it for less, then that becomes the going rate” becomes the new ‘norm’, then that results in ever-reducing wages?”

                    That is a slippery slope fallacy. Can you think of a reason why your scenario does not happen in reality?

                    “So with companies now bringing in cheap labour from overseas (which even David Farrar seemed uneasy about: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10789313 ), we’d be competing with imported labour?”

                    I think Farrar was arguing for equal standards of employment. I agree with that position.

                    “Is that the worldview you’re advocating?”

                    No.

                    “It seems to me , Pete, that you’ve been successful in your business and made pots of money (which I don’t mind – good on you) – but now you’re advocating for a society of ever-decreasing wages; the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority; and people taking what they’re given, no argument?”

                    I’m not arguing for ever decreasing wages. Wages are subject to supply and demand. If labour is scarce in a certain area – medical, for example- wages go up. The solution to a high wage economy is to have many people training in much needed skills, and fewer people training in skills with which we are over supplied.

                    “Your ACT/Libertarian philosophy is seen as repugnant by 99% of New Zealanders (judging by ACT’s outstanding success at the polls last year) – and rightly so.”

                    New Zealanders complain about low wages and high house prices, then vote themselves policies which will deliver more of the same. They voted Labour, then National, and got exactly what they thought they wanted.

                    “Of course, that’s not stopping the Right Wing (National and certain Employers) from bringing in ACT ideology by stealth; under the public radar”.

                    It would be great if it were true. National are Labour with blue ties.

                    ” I’ll be voting Mana instead of Greens, as I’m wanting some serious arse-kicking of Tories.) Well, people are certainly getting involved now”.

                    Wasting your vote is freedom of choice. The problem is Frank, that there is no return to exporting wool and lamb to the pre-EEC British motherland. New Zealand must now fight hard to deliver prosperity. Prosperity doesn’t just arrive by thinking it would be a great idea to hand people money we don’t have. See Greece.

                    I think the radicalisation you speak of is just the sputtering death throes of the disillusioned left. The 99%? Don’t make me laugh. The 99% know they have it very good, and need to work to maintain it.

                    “First thing on the agenda; enacting legislation to strengthen the power of the Union movement. Because, mate, by the time Shearer is Prime Minister, New Zealanders will’ve have a gutsful of the Right Wing, and will be demanding a return to some measure of social justice”.

                    So given people are free to join a Union now, and choose not to is not good enough for you?

                    I think you’ll find the Unions are largely pointless given we have strong worker protection legislation.

                    With respect, your head is jammed in the 1970s. We’re not going back.

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      8 March 2012 at 4:59 pm

                      “So basically, “if people are willing to do it for less, then that becomes the going rate” becomes the new ‘norm’, then that results in ever-reducing wages?”

                      That is a slippery slope fallacy. Can you think of a reason why your scenario does not happen in reality?

                      “Slippery slope fallacy”? I wish it were a “fallacy”. Considering that SEAfic has already demanded cheap labour for FCV fishing boats;

                      ‘We need more cheap foreign fishermen’
                      – http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/industries/5799232/We-need-more-cheap-foreign-fishermen

                      And foreign workers are being brought into NZ to work in Christchurch. http://www.voxy.co.nz/business/christchurch-will-need-immigrant-workers-rebuild/1861/92517

                      “So with companies now bringing in cheap labour from overseas (which even David Farrar seemed uneasy about: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10789313 ), we’d be competing with imported labour?”

                      I think Farrar was arguing for equal standards of employment. I agree with that position.

                      Does that apply to striking workers? If not, why not? How can you have fairness for one, but not the other?

                      “It seems to me , Pete, that you’ve been successful in your business and made pots of money (which I don’t mind – good on you) – but now you’re advocating for a society of ever-decreasing wages; the concentration of wealth in the hands of a tiny minority; and people taking what they’re given, no argument?”

                      I’m not arguing for ever decreasing wages. Wages are subject to supply and demand. If labour is scarce in a certain area – medical, for example- wages go up. The solution to a high wage economy is to have many people training in much needed skills, and fewer people training in skills with which we are over supplied.

                      I’m in agreement with you about “the solution to a high wage economy is to have many people training in much needed skills”. But that’s only a part-solution. Not everyone is suited to be in IT, brain surgery, or quantum physics.

                      And we’ll alweays need the blue-collar workers. Regardless of your fallacious claim that port-crane workers are “unskilled”, I submit that it takes training, skill, and accredition to be allowed anywhere near those million-dollar pieces of machinary.

                      Not one Port manager would allow an unskilled, untrained worker to ‘fly’ one of those mechanical ‘monsters’.

                      “Your ACT/Libertarian philosophy is seen as repugnant by 99% of New Zealanders (judging by ACT’s outstanding success at the polls last year) – and rightly so.”

                      New Zealanders complain about low wages and high house prices, then vote themselves policies which will deliver more of the same. They voted Labour, then National, and got exactly what they thought they wanted.

                      There is a measure of truth to that; “New Zealanders complain about low wages and high house prices, then vote themselves policies which will deliver more of the same. ”

                      I suspect though, that your solutions would be more free market – which is where we’ve been these last 27 years. With no discernible improvements (except for the top 1%, who’ve done very well).

                      “Of course, that’s not stopping the Right Wing (National and certain Employers) from bringing in ACT ideology by stealth; under the public radar”.

                      It would be great if it were true. National are Labour with blue ties.

                      Incorrect. National may not be as radically right-wing as you might want – but the neo-liberal agenda is there. “Flexible” labour laws, charter schools, SOE part-sales, “competition” to ACC (whilst hobbling the Corporation); etc.

                      ” I’ll be voting Mana instead of Greens, as I’m wanting some serious arse-kicking of Tories.) Well, people are certainly getting involved now”.

                      Wasting your vote is freedom of choice. The problem is Frank, that there is no return to exporting wool and lamb to the pre-EEC British motherland. New Zealand must now fight hard to deliver prosperity. Prosperity doesn’t just arrive by thinking it would be a great idea to hand people money we don’t have. See Greece.

                      I don’t believe I mentioned a “return to exporting wool and lamb to the pre-EEC British motherland”.

                      Greece is a red-herring. I could equally say, “Prosperity doesn’t just arrive by cronycapitalism and speculation. See Wall St.

                      And voting Mana isn’t a wasted vote. They did get more electoral support than ACT, if I might remind you.

                      “First thing on the agenda; enacting legislation to strengthen the power of the Union movement. Because, mate, by the time Shearer is Prime Minister, New Zealanders will’ve have a gutsful of the Right Wing, and will be demanding a return to some measure of social justice”.

                      So given people are free to join a Union now, and choose not to is not good enough for you?

                      Obviously it isn’t good enough if workers can be sacked merely for exercising their democratic right to strike. Obviously the power of employers now exceeds that of workers, and if mandatory membership of a Union is needed – so be it.

                      It’s a position I’ve arrived at recently, Pete, and I think you’ll find more and more people becoming more radicalised as employers abuse their position of power.

                      With respect, your head is jammed in the 1970s. We’re not going back.

                      Really? So EVERYTHING from the 1970s can be discarded? Does that include CER with Australia?

                      One of the fgood things that Roger Douglas came up with was a mandatory superannuation scheme, which Muldoon dumped. Had we kept that, we’d have considerable savings. (Our Aussie cuzzies have about A$1.2 trillion saved in their compulsory super accounts.)

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 6:13 pm

                      Frank, let’s look for points of agreement:

                      We both agree about the fishing boats.
                      We both agree that workers need to be able to earn a fair days pay for a fair days work
                      We both agree that people should train in needed skills, and less so where there are no skills shortages

                      You correctly identify a problem I’ve been giving a lot of thought:

                      “Not everyone is suited to be in IT, brain surgery, or quantum physics.And we’ll alweays need the blue-collar workers”.

                      This is true, but it is where the world is going. Technology has driven a bulldozer thorough many occupations. It’s a wake-up call – our schools MUST change.

                      The answer, I think, lies in specialisation. Whilst it is true not everyone can become an engineer, it is likely most people could be trained to do *some* engineering tasks. So we reorient education around a) demand and b) breaking tasks up into manageable chunks based on ability.

                      For example, in Russia, they have medical professionals – not doctors – who just do cataracts. They don’t know anything else – they don’t have a general medical degree – but they just become really, really good at doing that one specialised thing. That is high value, and (relatively) low skill compared to a fully trained surgeon, but no less useful when it comes to serving the demand for cataract surgery.

        • Mark 21.1.1.4
          7 March 2012 at 4:45 pm

          I agree Pete, I am also a Contractor. I offer a fair rate and do a good job. I like the flexibility it offers, as do those I contract to. I manage my finances to cover the breaks, feed my kids, pay my tax and bills. Luckily I have a cellphone so don’t have to “sit by the phone” 
          Mind you, $100k plus for 23 hrs a week, with 5 weeks holiday, 15 sickies (bet they use all of them) family Medical etc.. might go down to POAL for a job.. fuck it’s only driving, lashing etc, it ain’t rocket science or hard work really, and a lot less dangerous than jobs I’ve done.  

          • Colonial Viper 21.1.1.4.1
            7 March 2012 at 6:30 pm

            Thanks for the sicko fantasy.

          • muzza 21.1.1.4.2
            8 March 2012 at 11:20 am

            “Mind you, $100k plus for 23 hrs a week, with 5 weeks holiday, 15 sickies (bet they use all of them) family Medical etc.. might go down to POAL for a job.. fcuk it’s only driving, lashing etc, it ain’t rocket science or hard work really, and a lot less dangerous than jobs I’ve done”

            Insulting, dismissive, judgemental, missinformation, presumptuous…..

            Chip on shoulder much Mark!

            • Mark 21.1.1.4.2.1
              8 March 2012 at 2:35 pm

              No chips on shoulder here, just one of the majority of the country wondering why these guys have so spectacularly shot themselves in the foot. Doesn’t say much about being responsible for your family does it?
              And a fair few will end up on the dole queue, and you lot will blame “someone else” for that.
              The facts are out there, and they are certainly not as presented by MUNZ and Parsloe, who seem to think that most of us are as gullible as his Members.
              And the guys unloading the ships as we speak are doing a way better job of it., and will remain well paid, and should remain rid of MUNZ.
              And hey, I know about driving cranes, and lashing, and working shifts, and working dangerous jobs.. you?
              And I know you’ll never get ahead hiding behind some cowardly union bully boy. 
               

              • Frank Macskasy …
                8 March 2012 at 5:01 pm

                No chips on shoulder here…

                …And I know you’ll never get ahead hiding behind some cowardly union bully boy.

                “No chips”. Riiiight…

              • muzza …
                8 March 2012 at 5:35 pm

                “The facts are out there, and they are certainly not as presented by MUNZ and Parsloe, who seem to think that most of us are as gullible as his Members.” – What facts are you quoting from?

                “And the guys unloading the ships as we speak are doing a way better job of it., and will remain well paid, and should remain rid of MUNZ” – whats well paid Mark, and how are they doing a better job, where is your evidence?

                “And hey, I know about driving cranes, and lashing, and working shifts, and working dangerous jobs.. you?” – Are you a warf crane driver, I’m not and never claimed to have know, hence no comment on that by me!

                I’m not a member of a union, but I can see where all this is leading, and its not good. I also probably know alot more than you do about the situation, as a result of having taken the time to enage directly with the union, the warfies, and the council in an attempt to be able to decifer as best I could the actual story…did you do that Mark? Nah thought not

                MASSIVE CHIPS = Mark

      • Pete 21.1.2
        7 March 2012 at 5:38 pm

        I don’t understand the Union’s strategy.

        What leverage did they think they had? If able workers are lining up for the same jobs on the new terms and conditions, then the employers hold all the cards. So, shouldn’t they have acknowledged that position and tried to secure jobs rather than push for above market terms and conditions?

        • Colonial Viper 21.1.2.1
          7 March 2012 at 6:28 pm

          rather than push for above market terms and conditions?

          What fucking market are you talking about here? Is there a market for ports all around Auckland that I somehow missed? Is there an electronic exchange that this market for Auckland ports is traded on?

          Or do you mean that the union made a mistake pushing for above Chinese and Somalian “market terms and conditions”?

          • Pete 21.1.2.1.1
            7 March 2012 at 7:14 pm

            Compare with port workers in other centers plus an Auckland cost of living allowance, if necessary. Machine operators in other similar industries.

            It’s not rocket science.

            • Colonial Viper 21.1.2.1.1.1
              8 March 2012 at 7:37 am

              Nah that’s bullshit, the main problem here is that POAL has been incompetent and allowed their equipment to date, and has allowed their customers to pay far less than what they do at Australian ports.

              And now they want the workers to suffer for their own incompetence.

              BTW this dispute is not about pay, it is about the right to a regular dependable unionised job. But you knew that, asshole.

              • Pete …
                8 March 2012 at 8:50 am

                I don’t call you names. It’s disappointing that an honest exchange of views should be met with such unnecessary hostility.

                The Port would need to price relative to Tauranga, not Australia. These workers aren’t suffering, they are being offered very good T&C.

                No one has the *right* to a regular dependable job, Unionised or otherwise. There needs to be a win-win arrangement between willing worker and willing employer.

                • Frank Macskasy …
                  8 March 2012 at 9:20 am

                  “No one has the *right* to a regular dependable job, Unionised or otherwise. ”

                  Well, you see, Pete, that’s where you and I (and many others) would disagree.

                  You come at this from a neo-liberal, Individualistic viewpoint where society is little more than an abstract, irrelevent concept – and instead only the Individual exists. In your worldview, judging by your comments above, it’s all about the libertarian model of “a win-win arrangement between willing worker and willing employer”.

                  Of course there’s an element to that. But there is much more to a society and economy than contractual arrangements; there is also the social good and meeting the needs and obligations of a community.

                  Jobs and a good remuneration are a part of this.

                  I suspect that in your travels around the world, you may have witnessed societies where there was a vast gap in wealth/income, leading to mass poverty and living standards that none of us would want to endure.

                  Instead, Pete, you’re lucky enough (and it is a measure of luck) that you were born into a society with a high living standard. This has been brought about by taxpayers (our parents, grandparents, etc) paying to build roads, hospitals, telecommunications, rail, schools, and all the other infrastructure you probably never think of. Indeed, you’re tapping away on a computer, and posting messages here, using a telecommunications network (in part) originally laid down by the State, and paid for by the taxpayer.

                  Our parents and grandparents also supported a Union movement that encourage certain things,

                  * fair pay
                  * safe working conditions
                  * leisure time/40 hour week
                  * equality for women
                  * and end to child labour and other means of exploitation

                  All this led to a society where incomes were (generally) more equally distributed.

                  It also led to a society where someone like you could stand on the shoulders of others, and use the education, health, and employment system to better yourself.

                  Your assertion that “if people are willing to do it for less, then that becomes the going rate” flies in the face of everything in our society that led you to become who you are. If “people are willing to do it for less” then that is a race to the bottom of the economic scrap heap.

                  You’ve seen societies where “people are willing to do it for less”, Pete – and none of us would want to live in them. (I don’t see a mass exodus to places like Pakistan, India, Albania, Vietnam, or China, strangely enough.)

                  It strikes me as sad that people like you, Dave, who has benefitted from a society like ours, where Unions fought long and hard, to give workers a decent standard of living (instead of “people doing it for less”) – now criticises the same society that gave you a chance in life.

                  This sort of hand-biting, it seems, is more common in our generation, which benefitted from things like free education; Unionised awards; free healthcare; and generally a society that tried to give an even spread of wealth and income.

                  You could so easily have been born into a society where 1% hold 99% of wealth, and the remainder struggle in sweat shops to produce cheap goods for Western nations, at ten cents an hours or somesuch.

                  You succeeded in life and made a lot of money? Good on you. Just don’t forget that you didn’t achieve that success in isolation.

                  • Gosman …
                    8 March 2012 at 9:28 am

                    Gotta love how leftists are arrogant enough to try and define how other people think. I could attempt to define how you think as well Frank but for the life of me can’t work it out given your basic lack of knowledge on some simple economic concepts. Regardless I suggets you are quite wrong on Pete’s and right wing thinking on the subject on jobs.

                    • Uturn …
                      8 March 2012 at 9:36 am

                      Glad you’ve returned of your own free will, Gosman!

                      Yesterday, after hearing the sneer of your brooding teenager voice, then the overbearing adult hiding behind authority, we began to hear a slightly more moderated voice, gosman. Still hiding, still the damaged adult, but moving swiftly towards something more balanced. It was a little bit resigned, a bit besieged. Let’s look at that voice today, shall we?

                      As we’ve already discovered, gosman, you come here because you are reaching out from behind the fear you hide behind and express in the sneers and attacks on other people. It’s not politics for you gosman, because it is all about you. So it doesn’t matter which side of the political spectrum you chose to hide behind as long as you are hidden, from yourself. Yesterday you began to understand how the questions you demand that others face are your own. How much longer can you go on like this, gosman? The cracks are forming and you are rapidly exposed. You could petition the admin of the site. Here, try this: Try telling them that you, gosman, who formerly understood himself to be a troll, is just a scared person lost in the world being chased and harassed around their site, while you express your repression in the form of abuse on anyone who has ideas contrary to the power base you hide behind. It should work, shouldn’t it? You can fool them into thinking that your abuses help the readers of this site sharpen their wits while you slouch lazily against the adversarial environment; manipulating the weakness of other people’s anger and distracting readers from thinking their own thoughts. After all, the moderators here are a power base too, so you could hide behind them. And we both know how they have a long history of placing scared abusive people in a safe place – for their own good, of course – far away from anyone who can hurt them, somewhere outside this site.

                      But then you’ll be alone and afraid and no better off. Can’t go back to the sites you’re already banned from after having your ideas exposed as faith based beliefs. And how will you reconcile simultaneously holding two conflicting powerbases a once? You’ll have to choose, gosman. Can’t be right and left at once, eh. Well, there is a silver lining to this apparently dark grey cloud for you. Why not say that your political beliefs are centre right, or centre, then centre left – all the while releasing some more of your fear as you move towards a less scared and deluded new you? Eventually you’ll be a free man, ready to engage in politics, if you should choose or need to, because after being able to care about yourself, lose some of your self loathing and shame, you can really truly feel compassion for others and consider what systems might support their well being. You’ll be a man, finally, gosman. Isn’t that great? But let’s not forget why you come here, gosman, and not instead surround yourself with those who hurt you in the past, that you now believe you have to imitate to protect your damaged self. A new home is waiting for you gosman, make the first steps.

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      8 March 2012 at 9:57 am

                      Ah, you’re still stuck in you conceit that only you have “basic lack of knowledge on some simple economic concepts”, and no one else? As per usual, you make a couple of snide remarks but fail to address the ISSUES.

                      As for “arrogance” – no, I defer that to the Ports of Auckland board who’ve just sacked 300 maritime workers. If that’s not arrogant, I don’t know what is.

                      But then, we know where you’re coming from, Gosman, with your crazy libertarian religion, and concern for ordinary people is the last thing on your mind.

                      One day, you’ll realise that your adherence to libertarian dogma was as relevant as those fundamentalists who believe the Earth was created 6,000 years ago, and we’re all literally decended from a couple who wandered around buck-nekkid. Your simplistic worldview is achievable only because you choose to disregard 99% of the human condition around you. Once you start to realise that the world is not Black & White, but mostly umpteen shades of grey, you’ll come to the realisation that your libertarianism is a dead-end ideology.

                      We’re happy to contribute to your on-going education in this area.

                  • Pete …
                    8 March 2012 at 9:58 am

                    You were brought up middle class, huh.

                    If you understood the working class, you’d know that the working class don’t want to be working class. We want to be middle class. We want what you have.

                    The only way we can get it is out-working *you*.

                    You know, my parents were a bit suspicious and worried when I announced I wanted to go to University. They wanted me to get a good, solid trade so I wouldn’t go hungry.

                    Once I explained to them I was doing “trade training”, just a more modern kind, and at a different institution, they relaxed a little. My Dad reasoned that the computers I used to build was not a dissimilar activity to being a mechanic. They were still worried for three long years as I was entering a world I wasn’t supposed to be in.

                    But when I graduated, my Mum & Dad sat in the auditorium and absolutely glowed. They were so very, very proud. My Dad had tears in his eyes, and that’s the first time I’d ever seen that happen.

                    I am lucky in the respect I was born into this country. I was lucky I had the parents I did.

                    But do not deny me the results of my hard work and skill. That really does undervalue the working class, because work is our ticket out.

                    We don’t want your paternalism. We want to eat your lunch.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 10:16 am

                      BTW Frank, you appear to be arguing a straw man. I’m not arguing I did it *alone* or without society.

                      The services you described would all exist under a different funding system as any modern state would need a road network, telecommunications, education services, and would willingly pay for them. You appear to be arguing that if we didn’t have a bloated state service, none of these things would have been built.

                      Which is nonsense.

                    • KJT …
                      8 March 2012 at 10:41 am

                      And if you had been brought up in a totally libertarian society you would still be subsistence farming, starving or a pirate. If you lived to adulthood.
                       
                      Because the university education, healthcare and schooling that NZ tax payers paid for you would not be available to you.
                      We are all working class wealth creators apart from the parasites who live by speculation on our Labour.

                      The private sector is doing such a good job of providing healthcare, roading, education and public infrastructure in the USA as they cut the role of the State?
                      http://www.alternet.org/visions/154338/Ayn_Rand_Worshippers_Should_Face_Facts%3A_Blue_States_Are_the_Providers%2C_Red_States_Are_the_Parasites/

                      For those who don’t follow US politics Blue are the RWNJ’s.
                       
                       

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      8 March 2012 at 10:48 am

                      “But do not deny me the results of my hard work and skill.”

                      You must’ve missed the bit where I congratulated you, “You succeeded in life and made a lot of money? Good on you.”

                      “You know, my parents were a bit suspicious and worried when I announced I wanted to go to University. ”

                      You went to University? Was that prior to 1992?

                      “We don’t want your paternalism. We want to eat your lunch.”

                      If that’s the world you want, be careful; the working class will always outnumber you. They will eat YOUR lunch. And then eat you.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 10:52 am

                      Nonsense KJT. Where there is demand there is supply.

                      In any case, I’m not arguing for a “totally libertarian society”, whatever that is, anymore so than you are arguing for a Com**nist one.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 10:56 am

                      “If that’s the world you want, be careful; the working class will always outnumber you. They will eat YOUR lunch. And then eat you.”

                      It’s reality, Frank. It’s also a zero sum game. Some move up, some slide down.

                      I think many in the middle class are worried about ending up working class in terms of income. That’s what really seems to frighten them, and why they subconsciously wish to keep us in our place.

                    • Frank Macskasy …
                      8 March 2012 at 11:01 am

                      “The services you described would all exist under a different funding system as any modern state would need a road network, telecommunications, education services, and would willingly pay for them. You appear to be arguing that if we didn’t have a bloated state service, none of these things would have been built. ”

                      Really? Andf you know this, how?

                      Have a look at many of the Third World nations around the world that lack our basic infrastructure – why has a “different funding system ” not built their systems?

                      Has a “different funding system ” worked anywhere, in any modern state?

                      Even the US rail system was heavily dependent on US Army and government support.

                      So I’m not sure what “different funding system ” you are referring to; we’ve seen none in evidence.

                      In which case, if New Zealand had had to wait for a “different funding system ” to build the basic infrastructure that you now enjoy, and which allowed you to better yourself – we’d still be waiting.

                    • Pete …
                      8 March 2012 at 11:12 am

                      Frank, your argument is simply bizarre.

                      You’re creating a false dichotomy between a left wing state and the third world.

                      Rail in Britain was started by private companies. The first New Zealand ‘railway’ was a private mining line at Dun Mountain near Nelson. The first school in NZ was private. European New Zealand was settled by private enterprise.

                      I see a role for the state. I think it’s fair to say I see a much larger role for private enterprise.

                    • Gosman …
                      8 March 2012 at 11:59 am

                      Pete,

                      Frank tends to do this all the time. You get used to his lack of understanding of economic fundamentals after a while.

                      Frank,

                      I note on your post on this issue on your blog you bring up the international support for the Solidarity Trade Union at the Gdansk Shipyards. How did that work out again? Oh that’s right Solidarity won the right to form an independent Trade Union, Poland became free and democratic, and the Gdansk Shipyard went from employing over 20,000 people under the Communists to around 2000 now.

                      Weren’t you going to write a blog post about this? Perhaps I can help you with a title – ‘The law of unintended consequences’.

            • KJT 21.1.2.1.1.2
              8 March 2012 at 9:53 am

              OK. Tauranga lashing gangs. $21 to $23. Auckland $17 something.

              Incidentally. Tauranga lashers sit around for long periods waiting to be called also. Cheaper than holding ships up.

              How much cheaper does Auckland need them to be.

        • Frank Macskasy 21.1.2.2
          8 March 2012 at 7:39 pm

          From a post further above…

          The answer, I think, lies in specialisation. Whilst it is true not everyone can become an engineer, it is likely most people could be trained to do *some* engineering tasks. So we reorient education around a) demand and b) breaking tasks up into manageable chunks based on ability.

          Pete – not a criticism or disagreement as such, but I would have thought that specialisation in a fast-changing world would be counter-intuitive. Professions are changing so rapidly that people are required to upskill and retrain more often than our grandparents had to. (Eg; who needs a TV repairperson these days?)

          I would have thought that it’s better to have general schooling and teach our young people specific skills like problem-solving; and how to learn.

          But I would tend to agree with you; education is of vital important these days.

          Where we might (?) disagree is that I advocate a 100% free education system. I see it as a social investment as well as a personal benefit. A well educated person is productive; pays taxes; consumes. Someone under-educated may not be as employable; requires state assistance; and buys less.

          I blogged about one such person recently; a good friend of mine; http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2012/03/06/once-upon-a-time-there-was-a-solo-mum/

          I believe we save money by ensuring everyone is fully educated and trained, in the long run.

  22. Gosman 22
    7 March 2012 at 3:26 pm

    Helen Kelly has the right atitude. Directing her attacks on the Mayor. Interesting that Len Brown states that while he is sympathetic for the workers he is the Mayor for all Auckland and that he has to ensure that the council gets a good return on investment. What a dirty capitalist scumbag.

  23. Mark 23
    7 March 2012 at 4:04 pm

    Not a good result for anyone, least of all the workers who weren’t given a secret ballot and were bullied into a course of action giving a predictable result.
    MUNZ & Parsloe have lied to the media, the public and probably their own members.
    The offers were good offers – guaranteed hours, plenty of notice for shifts, and choices where possible, increased pay.
    This is no attack on the workers by the bosses.. this has been an attack on hard working people everywhere by the power crazy, old school MUNZ bosses and some of their lazy, rank & file thugs. 
    This is why Len and most of the left have stayed out.. they may be deluded troughers but even they are dismayed by the MUNZ troughers.
    Just heard on the “news” more utter bullshit by Parsloe “sitting by the phone, no guaranteed hours, never know when or if you will have work” – what a lying. thieving cunt. 

    • Colonial Viper 23.1
      7 March 2012 at 4:08 pm

      yeah thanks for your fantasy description of the “white is black, good is bad, up is down, right is wrong” universe that you live in.

    • muzza 23.2
      7 March 2012 at 4:17 pm

      Wow how do you know all that Mark?

      Must be very easy being so fcuken ignorant!

  24. Mark 24
    7 March 2012 at 4:20 pm

    Pretty black and white what was on offer, some facts from POAL here:
    http://www.poal.co.nz/shipping_cargo/downloads/20120221_IAU_UnionMisinformation.pdf  

    Doesn’t quite seem to confirm MUNZ statements, someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
    It may have been posted before, but very pertinent in light of today’s comments. 

    • framu 24.1
      7 March 2012 at 4:51 pm

      “Doesn’t quite seem to confirm MUNZ statements”

      well duh – its put out by POAL, the people MUNZ disagree with.

    • muzza 24.2
      7 March 2012 at 4:57 pm

      Put it this way – The warfies I have spoken with off the cuff, when asked about the wages, the union, the negotiations, and the missinformation, they all had the same things to say.
      That the port management was talking bs, and that document you liked to is the output.

      Sure there is going to be some nonsense both sides, but if you have been to meetings to listen to what the workers reps, and indeed the worker who has been part of the discussions, it certainly sounds like, there has been an attack on the warfies by the management, who are there to implement the councils crazy demands for higher returns. http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/6443147/Mayor-demands-monopoly-rent

      There is also problems inside the council between some electeds, this I have seen first hand while being in email conversations with them. Really not very convincing their abilities, or their agendas, once you get invovled directly!

    • KJT 24.3
      8 March 2012 at 10:45 am

      Facts!! ??
       
      Spin!

  25. Mark 25
    7 March 2012 at 5:25 pm

    Ok, but what are the facts then as MUNZ state them.

    • Kotahi Tane Huna 25.1
      7 March 2012 at 5:27 pm

      LMGTFY

      edit: on second thoughts, having read your other comments, ESAD

  26. Hilary 26
    7 March 2012 at 5:37 pm

    Chair of PoA board was just on Checkpoint. Mary Wilson asked him some great questions (apart from how much he was paid for his job) and he displayed absolutely no understanding of what port work involves or what it means to be a port worker. Who appointed him?

  27. Mark 27
    7 March 2012 at 6:00 pm

    @ Kotahi Tane Huna 
    Well, I’ve had to eat a bit of shit over the years, didn’t kill me.. mainly due to my poor choices. The poor wharfies and their families are going to have to eat a bit now unfortunately.. poor choice listening to MUNZ.

    Union bosses act in the best interests of their members, like Socialists act in the best interests of the workers.
    Now there’s a Tui billboard. 

    • Colonial Viper 27.1
      7 March 2012 at 6:15 pm

      Mark you asshole

      Don’t forget who is doing the firing here: the Board and Executive Management of a profitable corporate entity.

      They are the bad actors who have no regard for anything accept the annual bonuses they will get for wrecking peoples lives.

      • Mark 27.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 7:11 pm

        CV, you petal..
        It looks more like Abandonment of Employment to me.. people on a good wicket, made an offer of another good wicket with a bit of flexibility thrown in, deciding not to accept it, and not wanting anyone else to accept, and happy to see 1000’s downstream affected by their actions.
        But hey, since POAL Management jobs are so easy, and well paid, they should just apply for them, and join the real world.
        The only people wrecking lives are  Parsloe and his cronies, and those here that promote the “entitlement mentality” hugely destructive to those you purport to support.
        Time to wake up and smell the roses methinks. 

        • Te Reo Putake 27.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 7:21 pm

          The only thing clear from your comment is that you don’t know what abandonment of employment is, Mark. That and your ignorance about the actual nature of the negotiations, in which the union offered significant changes, even though they were all ready setting new records in productivity. The problem here is a management that refuses to change its demands one iota. That’s not negotiation, that’s a gun to the head.
           
          And the other question you should be asking is why do POAL charge so little to move containers. Don’t they know how to negotiate? Oh, wait … I think I see a pattern developing.
           

    • Brooklyn 27.2
      7 March 2012 at 6:57 pm

      But they were striking over the threat to make them all redundant and then contract out their jobs. I don’t see how you can suddenly blame MUNZ for the Port following through on its threat. Or do you bend over and take it as a matter of preference?

      • Mark 27.2.1
        7 March 2012 at 7:15 pm

        What a load of shit.. where do you get that idea?
        If this is this what you believe you need some more balanced information.

        • Colonial Viper 27.2.1.1
          8 March 2012 at 7:38 am

          POAL planned to fire all unionised workers from the start. Strangely enough, that is what they have gone ahead and done.

  28. grumpy 28
    7 March 2012 at 6:30 pm

    Don’t know about POAL but what’s the story with Parsloe being a director/shareholder of a stevedoring company that could be in line for POAL contract work?

    • burt 28.1
      7 March 2012 at 7:12 pm

      grumpy

      It’s OK when socialists do it…. but if Parsloe was a BRT member – then we would have a problem with conflicts of interest…..

    • Te Reo Putake 28.2
      7 March 2012 at 7:55 pm

      Alright, I’ll bite. What juicy turd did you find in the sewer today, grumpy? Do tell us more.

      • grumpy 28.2.1
        7 March 2012 at 8:37 pm

        Apparently Parsloe is a director of a providore company that is in line to pick up contract work (Auckland Providores Ltd springs to mind). Conflict of interest? At least, unlike his members, he has other options.

      • grumpy 28.2.2
        7 March 2012 at 8:45 pm

        Here you go – not too hard……………..

        NEVER A WHITE FLAG LIMITED (2474748) –
        Director

        MARITIME UNION STEVEDORES LIMITED (96717) –
        Director

        AUCKLAND STEVEDORING COMPANY LIMITED (100376) –
        Director

        SEAFARERS RETIREMENT FUND NOMINEES LIMITED (1963442) –
        Director

        • Te Reo Putake 28.2.2.1
          7 March 2012 at 9:08 pm

          And?
           
          Parsloe is a director of four companies related to the union. Bet you don’t know the significance of the first one, do you? And who says they are in line to get privatised work? Whale? Farrar? Just you? 
           
          Grumpy? Numpty!

          • Grumpy 28.2.2.1.1
            7 March 2012 at 9:25 pm

            So, you knew all about it eh?

            What’s the significance of Auckland Stevedores then?

            • Te Reo Putake 28.2.2.1.1.1
              7 March 2012 at 9:29 pm

              No significance at all, grumpy. But then, it’s you making the claim, so why don’t you ante up? What’s the significance, as you see it? And who says any of those companies are in line for the port work?

              • Grumpy …
                7 March 2012 at 9:47 pm

                So, we have the union boss, who is totally opposed to private stevedoring companies, who just happens to be the director of a private stevedoring company?????
                [that company will be the legal vehicle for the union local. many unions have Ltds. Eddie]

                • Te Reo Putake …
                  7 March 2012 at 9:54 pm

                  Meh. The real question is whether the companies are going concerns or lying dormant. Plenty of people and organisations have shelf companies for a variety of reasons. However, you have claimed, without providing proof, that they are in line to get the privatised port work.
                   
                  That’s quite a nasty smear if it isn’t true, grumpy. So, have you got something of substance or are just indulging in wishful thinking?

                  • Grumpy …
                    7 March 2012 at 10:19 pm

                    I said “apparently”, so are you in a position to deny that he is a director of a private stevedoring company?

                    If you can’t, perhaps you could gues why that might be when MUNZ is so opposed to their existence?
                    [the company is MUNZ. As an elected official in MUNZ, he is director of its Ltd. Pretty simple. Eddie]

                    • Te Reo Putake …
                      7 March 2012 at 10:33 pm

                      This is what you said, in full:
                       
                      “Apparently Parsloe is a director of a providore company that is in line to pick up contract work (Auckland Providores Ltd springs to mind). Conflict of interest? At least, unlike his members, he has other options.”
                       
                      Care to offer some proof for any of those three sentences?

                    • grumpy …
                      8 March 2012 at 10:46 am

                      Thanks Eddie – easy enough to clarify then eh?

            • Frank Macskasy 28.2.2.1.1.2
              8 March 2012 at 12:49 am

              Were they at the Twin Towers, remotely pilotting the drone 747s to their pre-determined targets, on behalf of their Illuminatii reptilian Overlords?

              Because, honestly, ‘Grumpy’ (or should we call you ‘Dopey’ or ‘Sleepy’?), your attempt at conspiratorial deflection is probably the best laugh we’ve had today. And believe me, we needed someone to make us laugh – it;s been a sad, shameful day for this country.

              Anyway…

              You reptilian Masters send their greetings. (And bring some milk home – none left in their fridge.)

  29. Pascal's bookie 29
    7 March 2012 at 6:52 pm

    huge surprise that managements best idea for increasing productivity is to lower wage costs. Sorry, ‘only idea’.

    It’s the same old ‘we’d luv to see wages drop’ in a different context, and I’d love to hear from economists, or treasury or anyone else why productivity gains made purely by lowering the cost of labour are worth having at a macro level.

    The work itself hasn’t become more productive. Certainly not for the worker.All it is a transfer of who’s getting the product of the work. Which is why so many are pulling up and shooting through to oz.

    • rosy 29.1
      7 March 2012 at 9:24 pm

      “huge surprise that managements best idea for increasing productivity is to lower wage costs.

      It’ll be a huge surprise too when WFF payments go up because they’re needed to subsidise the employment costs of those family people who just had their wages cut.

      The taxpayer further subsidising a working wage … law of unintended consequences?

  30. Reagan Cline 30
    7 March 2012 at 7:06 pm

    Wharfies have always been a big part of propping up the “borrow to import items we should be striving to produce here” arrangement. Thereby enabling our misguided emphasis on the export of raw farm, forest and horticultural products. There is not much manufacture of exportable items requiring cleverness and human skill here is there ? At the moment we leave that to others.
    Why are so many leaving – it’s not just for better wages and salaries surely ? We don’t produce enough of high value here, whether in the arts, sport, industry or academia. There are exceptions, but in my view they just prove the rule. We need to up our act or we will become more and more dependant on outside sources, reliant as they are on tenuous links (we are isolated geographically and electronic communications require an immensely complex infrastructure and are subject to disruptions of various kinds – natural and intended). I respect anyone who days a good day’s work and wharfies are no exception, but perhaps they will encourage their children along a different path ?

  31. insider 31
    7 March 2012 at 7:39 pm

    Its a delicious irony to see all the same standardistas who have been recently championing the wonders of public ownership of these ‘golden egg’ assets and crusading against the profit motivated evils of asset stripping private owners, suddenly turn on their own and accuse them of long term asset stripping and calling for increased profits. Comedy gold as Gosman would say.

    Gloating aside, having been through redundancy its a shit thing to deal with. Munz have had no choice but to fight the cutting back of t&cs. Many of us in similar situations can walk to a competitor but not everyone has that luxury. all manual workers have in their arsenal is withdrawing their labour so I can’t see any issues with what they have done. Maybe they’ve been naive, but hindsight is a wonderful thing.

    And the fact they have all been sacked all of a sudden, the legal and pr strategies in place shows this is a highly coordinated and predetermined action. That’s just wrong. The munz supporters are right to target brown as he is effectively the beneficiary, and he should be asking some hard questions of the board. Big shareholders would be all overyour board and management asking for info if this were a private company. It seems brown is disinterested in the value of a major asset or is not upfront about what he knows is going on.

    Ps Hooten is doing poal’s pr isn’t he? Isn’t he also a leading cheerleader for getting rid of the port? Do the maths…

  32. Hilary 32
    7 March 2012 at 7:42 pm

    Yay – Campbell Live poll clearly supports the workers. The tide is turning. People realise it could be them next, and the 99% is standing up.

    • Pete 32.1
      7 March 2012 at 7:54 pm

      I think you’ll find those who watch Campbell aren’t exactly representative, given that he tends to take a left wing agenda….

      • Te Reo Putake 32.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 8:10 pm

        Actually, that is representative, Pete. NZ is a socially progressive, mixed economic model country with an advanced welfare state, that occasionally veers right whenever we feel like being told we’ve been very, very naughty. Repeat after me: Pain is the cleanser, pain is the cleanser!

        • Pete 32.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 8:44 pm

          I don’t see the solution to a maxed out credit card as maxing out another credit card. I don’t see that as progressive, socially or otherwise.

          Our “welfare” state is a total mess. It is an utter failure. It has failed to prevent poverty, and it could be argued it produces even more of it.

          • Te Reo Putake 32.1.1.1.1
            7 March 2012 at 8:58 pm

            The welfare state causes poverty? Yeah right! If capitalism is so crash hot, how come we’re in the shit? Why hasn’t there been a NZ wide lift in incomes since we started down the free market path, pete? We’ve had 25 years of what we were told was the finest economics money can buy and yet we are worse off as a country and all you can do is blame the poor.

          • Colonial Viper 32.1.1.1.2
            7 March 2012 at 10:13 pm

            Our “welfare” state is a total mess. It is an utter failure. It has failed to prevent poverty, and it could be argued it produces even more of it.

            The social security system is a safety net for those who slip through. Problem is, neoliberal crony capitalism has been throwing everyone overboard in massive numbers.

            • KJT 32.1.1.1.2.1
              7 March 2012 at 10:31 pm

              Funny how social security always gets much more expensive under RWNJ Governments.
               
              In properly led countries there are not enough on it for it to be a problem

            • grumpy 32.1.1.1.2.2
              8 March 2012 at 3:15 pm

              Safety net?????? More of a hammock really………………..

          • KJT 32.1.1.1.3
            7 March 2012 at 10:40 pm

            Easy to fix that maxed out credit card.
             
            Tax the thieves.
             
            CGT, FTT, 50% on incomes over 300k and inheritance taxes.
             
            Bring the wealth back to those that work for it. The real wealth creators.
             
            http://www.alternet.org/story/154153/want_to_see_a_real_job_creator_look_in_the_mirror_not_at_mitt_romney
             
            Though I have some doubts about the accountant.
             
            The increase in incomes for ordinary New Zealanders will bring investment back where it belongs.

            • Pete 32.1.1.1.3.1
              8 March 2012 at 8:40 am

              That ensures your tax take diminishes as people and capital take flight. Which state services will you be cutting in response?

              • Frank Macskasy …
                8 March 2012 at 11:21 am

                You may have missed it, Dave, but thousands of people are already leaving NZ. It seems they’re unwilling to stick around and wait for the ‘fruits’ of Dear Leader’s neo-liberal nirvana…

              • McFlock …
                8 March 2012 at 3:25 pm

                Personally, my impression is that the rest of us would do a lot better if Atlas really did shrug off.

          • Frank Macskasy 32.1.1.1.4
            8 March 2012 at 11:43 am

            “I think many in the middle class are worried about ending up working class in terms of income. That’s what really seems to frighten them, and why they subconsciously wish to keep us in our place.”

            Pete, that’s when they vote Labour and throw out the Tories – as they did in the late 1990s, and as they will again in 2014 (if not earlier).

            “Rail in Britain was started by private companies.”

            Correct.

            “The first New Zealand ‘railway’ was a private mining line at Dun Mountain near Nelson.”

            I hardly think a mining line constitutes a modern public transport, rail link.

            “The first school in NZ was private.”

            That may well be. But the mass-education of the country required state resourcing, funded by the taxpayer. By itself, private schooling (which still exists) could not have provided the necessary services.

            Interestingly, many “private” schools are now integrated into the State system. They were unable to remain profitable it seems, and required state support.

            s”European New Zealand was settled by private enterprise.”

            So? Once the colonists arrived and started building a new society, they formed their own system of government and paid taxes to build infra-structure. That is what is known as the State; people organising and pooling a portion of their wealth to build bigger infra-structure; more efficient as providing services; and more durable.

            That is why, Dave, the best system is that which utilises the collective authority of the State (ie, we the people) and that of private enterprise (the ingenuity of the Individual). Creating a careful balance between the two gives us a dynamic society which utilises the benefits of both State and Individual.

            Go too far to the left, and the State crushes the ingenuity of the Individual.

            Go too far to the neo-liberal right, and the selfish demands of the Individual stifles the ability of the State to act collectively for the benefit of the whole.

            And by the way, if you obtained your University education prior to 1992, it was afforded to you freely; sans university fees, and most likely with a Student Allowance. That was a service paid for by the State (the taxpayer), to benefit you as an Individual, and Society, as a whole.

  33. Reagan Cline 33
    7 March 2012 at 8:17 pm

    Insider, how can you judge a perceived “highly coordinated and predetermined action” as wrong without knowing the end ? Or do you suggest that no end can make it right ?

    • insider 33.1
      7 March 2012 at 9:14 pm

      I think that it’s likely the end game was the sacking of the workforce and all the rest was choreography to justify it. If so, that is against the spirit of good employer/employee relations and so is wrong on principle as well as in deed. Just my guess of course and it could just be a hindsight interpretation

      • KJT 33.1.1
        7 March 2012 at 10:31 pm

        You are correct.

        • Jenny 33.1.1.1
          7 March 2012 at 10:59 pm

          Significantly, the Ports of Auckland had tried to contract out the shuttle driver union member’s jobs during the period of the last collective agreement.

          And even before negotiations for the new collective agreement had begun management had demanded that their right to contract out all union positions be written into the new collective contract.

          For those who say that the union was being too forceful etc. etc. blah blah blah. For the Maritime Union to agree to such a clause would actually have meant agreeing to their own dissolution. In fact the union offered every other concession they could, except their agreeing to contracting out all their jobs.

          Not getting the agreement they wanted around contracting out. POAL have proceeded with contracting out anyway.

          In my opinion, no court or judge in the country could but rule, that this is a case of negotiating in bad faith.

  34. KATY 34
    7 March 2012 at 8:33 pm

    This issue is not going to go away, what happens now that international unions are becoming involved ? . By making port workers redundant, maybe some people have forgotten that unions are just that, a united force that in this case is a rather big united force who will come together when one of their force is in trouble (strength in numbers).
    Do the management at the POA consider that their actions will not be helpfull to either themselves or to the ports of Auckland

    http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/7092 .

  35. Reagan Cline 35
    7 March 2012 at 9:06 pm

    Katy, I

  36. TERRY NAKI 36
    7 March 2012 at 9:10 pm

    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.

    • Frank Macskasy 36.1
      8 March 2012 at 12:22 am

      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.

  37. johnm 37
    7 March 2012 at 11:15 pm

    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!

    • queenstfarmer 37.1
      8 March 2012 at 12:50 am

      Presumably that would make it a “NeoLiberal assault” led by Len Brown, Labour Party member.

      • Colonial Viper 37.1.1
        8 March 2012 at 7:17 am

        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.

        • Gosman 37.1.1.1
          8 March 2012 at 9:39 am

          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.

      • rosy 37.1.2
        8 March 2012 at 7:39 am

        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.

        The group which includes Mainfreight Group Managing Director Don Braid, Heart of the City
        CEO Alex Swney, CTU President Helen Kelly and Michael Lorimer, Director Grant Samuel &
        Associates, believe there is a demand from a range of groups in Auckland for a new approach
        that balances the need for the Port to make a return and the Ports role as a service to business
        in Auckland, employer of Aucklanders and guardian of the beautiful Auckland space it occupies.
        “We have a vision for a triple bottom line approach to the Port – this vision includes;
        1. A Port that meets the needs of both those onshore (the importers and exporters of New
        Zealand) and offshore (the shipping companies) now and in the future;
        2. A Port that shares its land with the public, protects its environment and sees itself as
        part of the development of Auckland including encouraging use of the waterfront and
        harbour for recreation; and
        3. A Port that adopts a modern approach to employment relations which maintains an
        efficient and productive Port including retaining decent jobs and is not part of a “race to
        the bottom” in employment practice.” Michael Lorimer said.

        They appear to think a race to the bottom is the wrong approach. Will Len listen? they’re going to see him.

  38. Frank Macskasy 38
    8 March 2012 at 12:21 am

    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!

    • Gosman 38.1
      8 March 2012 at 9:41 am

      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?

    • Ianupnorth 38.2
      8 March 2012 at 12:41 pm

      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)
       

  39. Bruce 39
    8 March 2012 at 2:20 am

    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.

  40. KJT 40
    8 March 2012 at 6:49 am

    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.
     
     

  41. Philip 41
    8 March 2012 at 10:13 am

    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.

    • Ianupnorth 41.1
      8 March 2012 at 12:53 pm

      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….

  42. CJ 42
    9 March 2012 at 9:43 am

    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.

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