John Key and POAL

Written By: - Date published: 1:26 pm, January 23rd, 2012 - 43 comments
Categories: class war - Tags: ,

In a couple of week’s time parliament will resume and the government will start its move on the POAL dispute.

The way I figure it John Key and his government can do nothing at all or they can respond in a variety of ways.

The former is not going to be an option – the port is moving on redundancies and contracting and the union is responding with an international black-listing. If the dispute goes this far it may well spell the end for the port.

I also suspect that John Key and his government have had plans for POAL for some time – the fact the management and board had planned to manufacture the dispute before negotiations even started and the nature of their political connections suggest to me that it would be unlikely the government didn’t have a heads-up on this debacle.

Which means it’s likely the government will do something. I’m assuming that none of these responses will favour the union members that are having their pay and conditions attacked so that just leaves anti-worker responses.

My pick is that the degree of response John Key and his government feel they can implement against these workers will be based on the strength of public support these workers have. If the government is seen as attacking working people the response will be muted, if the public are ready to lynch the union the response will be extreme (and may well have repercussions for working Kiwis beyond the port).

Perhaps the worst of these being considered by Key and his government is a plan to “unbundle” the ownership of the port from employment of port workers. Across all ports. This would have the effect of forcing contracting across all ports by law.

Thankfully, as I understand it, Key’s polling is telling him that, despite large-scale smear campaigns by the usual suspects, the public support for the workers is such that a full scale attack on them would be too politically expensive. Especially as another PR hit like the one Key took over the hobbit dispute would make it seem very much like he’s a PM who always backs big corporates over working Kiwis.

So instead of the king-hit they really would like National are going to have to settle for a lesser hit on port workers. My expectation would be that there will be some small change in law that stops contracting levels being set in a collective agreement. This may only apply to ports or indeed may only apply to POAL (although legislating for a single employer would be awkward, messy and downright bad law, this government has shown no fear of similarly poor legislation in the past).

Whatever John Key and his government decide to do, one thing is a dead cert – to a smaller or greater extent it will take us another step further away from closing the wage-gap with Aussie.

43 comments on “John Key and POAL ”

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  1. Fortran 1
    23 January 2012 at 1:40 pm

    POAL should merge with POT, otherwise it appears stuffed.

  2. Lanthanide 2
    23 January 2012 at 1:42 pm

    “to a smaller or greater extent it will take us another step further away from closing the wage-gap with Aussie.”

    As I understand it, the top 1% in Australia earn a lot more than the top 1% do here.

    Also due to the simple averaging they use when they like to compare our wages to those in Australia, it’s quite possible that increasing the wealth of the top 1% of NZers make our numbers on paper look better.

    • Colonial Viper 2.1
      23 January 2012 at 1:47 pm

      Sadly we don’t have the quality strategic thinking in this country necessary to close the income gap with Australia. More cows and more mines, to me, doesn’t quite qualify as quality strategic thinking.

  3. dave brownz 3
    23 January 2012 at 2:16 pm

    CV you know as well as I do that rip, shit and bust is strategic thinking for the bosses.
    Back to POAL, its no use relying on JK reading polls about public support for MUNZ.
    What is needed is physical evidence of mass support at the ports. Occupy our Port!
    Start building a mass picket now for the time when MUNZ workers are sacked and their jobs taken by contractors.

    • Colonial Viper 3.1
      23 January 2012 at 9:40 pm

      Yep.

      • Gosman 3.1.1
        24 January 2012 at 4:08 am

        Okay then why don’t you go ahead and do it CV? A number of times you have been challenged about backing up what you say and you reply that you are going to do something. This seems like a taylor made opportunity for you. Help organise an occupy POAL. You can use some if that rag tag bunch that was moved on yesterday.

        • dave brownz 3.1.1.1
          24 January 2012 at 10:12 am

          Troller le troller la

          It can done, Occupy in the US is Occupying ports in solidarity with the ILWU. And those are ports that are owned by the 1%. Auckland is technically owned by its ratepayers.
          Actually the rag tag bunch as you put it wasnt moved on. Some were evicted, some arrested and others stayed put. All the attacks on Occupy don’t make it ‘move on’, it multiplies and goes from the parks into the key points of the economy.
          Its only a matter of time that the ragtag rebel army multiplies and overthrows the death star and all the pathetic cheerleaders like yourself and the mindless radio and blogjocks who live off the workers.

          • Gosman 3.1.1.1.1
            24 January 2012 at 10:21 am

            Yeah the Wellington Occupy crowd has been roaring success. Internal splits, intimidation of the public, lack of food and funding. I can see the momentum building from my office as I type.

            By the way i am responding to C.V’s implied suggestion that the Ports should be occupied. It is not my suggestion at all. I am just reminding him that actions speak louder than words because that is all he tends to be on issues such as these.

            • Colonial Viper 3.1.1.1.1.1
              27 January 2012 at 12:53 am

              I am just reminding him that actions speak louder than words because that is all he tends to be on issues such as these.

              😀

  4. beachbum 4
    23 January 2012 at 4:48 pm

    A mass picket after the shit has hit the fan does not seem very effective. Its like complaining to the refereee after a game of football.

    Surely if there is support, it is aleady being shown?

  5. HappyGoLucky 5
    23 January 2012 at 5:00 pm

    Screw John Key and his smiling and waving – what is David Shearer going to do about this? He’s the one who carries “The Standard’ for workers? (excuse the pun)

    • chris73 5.1
      23 January 2012 at 5:35 pm

      Nothing (which is the smart thing to do) because he knows which way the wind is blowing on this

      • tc 5.1.1
        23 January 2012 at 6:32 pm

        The breeze thats coming from the fan setup by the vested interests in privatising it out from under ratepayers.

        • chris73 5.1.1.1
          23 January 2012 at 6:41 pm

          and your point is?

          • mickysavage 5.1.1.1.1
            23 January 2012 at 6:46 pm

            Gee Chris do you need a road map?

            The point is that the manufactured “support” is coming from the rich or those who are not rich who are stupid enough to believe the crap being fed to us by the privatize everything make markets more free brigade.  Which camp are you in? 

            • chris73 5.1.1.1.1.1
              23 January 2012 at 7:00 pm

              The camp that believes that because someone is “rich” it doesn’t mean they’re pricks

              • IrishBill …
                23 January 2012 at 7:15 pm

                Actually the polling I’ve seen shows support swinging behind the workers on this one.

              • mickysavage …
                23 January 2012 at 7:16 pm

                Um I did not say that.  I said “the manufactured “support” is coming from the rich or those who are not rich who are stupid enough to believe the crap being fed to us by the privatize everything make markets more free brigade.  Which camp are you in?”

                So which camp is it? 

                PS I don’t mind people being rich. But I do mind when they become richer by looting community assets.

                • Draco T Bastard …
                  23 January 2012 at 7:53 pm

                  I don’t mind people being rich.

                  I do because the community can’t afford them. This will become even more true as Peak Oil progresses.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    23 January 2012 at 9:38 pm

                    I’ll run with John Michael Greer’s line here. It’s not just the ultra rich we can’t afford. But also the well off middle class. This will become clearer as time goes along, and as the middle class shrinks.

                  • Matthew Whitehead …
                    23 January 2012 at 10:04 pm

                    If the community can’t afford them, it’s precisely because they’re looting things that ought to belong to everyone, though. 🙂

                • Gosman …
                  24 January 2012 at 7:20 am

                  When did you stop beating your wife mickeysavage?

          • tc 5.1.1.1.2
            24 January 2012 at 7:00 am

            My point is amongst others that you are a very busy troll indeed. Pay well does it?

        • Akldnut 5.1.1.2
          23 January 2012 at 6:42 pm

          HappyGoLucky must be worried jacking the thread this early, ahem….. its about Nationals perceived options not Labours.

  6. randal 6
    23 January 2012 at 7:13 pm

    according to the pundits on 9-no-one this morning the sequence is privatise the port and shift all exports to tautanga or marsden point and akl becomes a small import port only and the land used for other purposes.
    if this is the case then it is doubly imperative that what remains is not parcelled out to the bloodsuckers in waiting.

  7. Fisiani 7
    23 January 2012 at 7:26 pm

    There is an assumption here that the Government has to do sumfin. It does not. It’s not a Labour micro-manager government. The union has cost the POAL workers their jobs. Sad really.
    At least there will be jobs for others and I’m sure some of the POAL workers.

  8. Wetfootmammal 8
    24 January 2012 at 6:22 am

    New Zealanders will submit to a gradual erosion of individual rights because, like the Americans, most of us are ignorant and are don’t read. After the Employment Contracts Act 1991, a piece of crypto-fascist legislation was introduced with ease by the authoritarian right, anything is now possible. New Zealanders don’t value their rights. In a way most of us don’t deserve any liberty or rights because we don’t defend them.

    • Gosman 8.1
      24 January 2012 at 10:02 am

      Hmmmmm….. 1991 versus 2012. I’m pretty sure there was 9 years in there which had a non-National led government wasn’t there?

      • The Gormless Fool formerly known as Oleolebiscuitbarrell 8.1.1
        25 January 2012 at 10:48 am

        I’m pretty sure there was 9 years in there which had a non-National led government…

        And a new Act written by Margaret Wilson.

        • felix 8.1.1.1
          25 January 2012 at 12:08 pm

          …which is substantially better than the ECA but still an erosion compared to what existed before it.

          Sheesh do you fucking idiots need everything spelled out for you?

  9. Gosman 9
    24 January 2012 at 10:01 am

    When is the Union going to use their smoking gun over the ‘fact’ the managment is not engaged in good faith bargaining?

  10. indiana 10
    24 January 2012 at 1:43 pm

    Andrew Little begged Helen Clark to intervene when Air New Zealand looked at contracting out its engineering division – did she intervene? No, so the EPMU caved. High expectation is that MUNZ will cave too, as they are getting no love from Len Brown.

  11. randal 11
    25 January 2012 at 12:21 pm

    as hunter trhompson would say the politicians here are no better than grubby little ward heelers with the system set up so there is no countervailing power.
    and instructive example was the contrcting out of traffic cops so then the secuirty frims had no power to deal with boy wussers.
    thats the way its happening all over.
    al power and ability to do something difused to the ppoint of uselenssness while the grubby little ward heelers and there familiars steal all th emoney and pretend they are are of ahigher order of humanity.