Management incompetence costs POAL millions

Written By: - Date published: 2:18 pm, March 8th, 2012 - 28 comments
Categories: capitalism, class war, infrastructure, transport, Unions, wages - Tags: , ,

Ports of Auckland wants to increase profits by slashing pay-packets by 20% – $6m. It won’t make the containers move faster. It will increase profits only by taking bread out of the mouths of port worker families

So far, the process has cost them at least $28m.

Add $11.5m for redundancy payments (for workers they hope to re-hire via contractors).

That’s over six years’ ‘savings’ spent already. Add the cost of continuing interruption as the contractors are established.

Add the cost of blacklisting.

Add the cost of customers that have shifted ports.

Len Brown should sack the POAL management for incompetence.

Or he should be sacked himself. (I’m writing this while listening to Brown on RNZ. It makes me sick that we fought for this creep).

28 comments on “Management incompetence costs POAL millions ”

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  1. Mark 1
    8 March 2012 at 2:48 pm

    I think that should read:
    Parsloe’s lies and ego cost workers their jobs and ratepayers millions. 
    POAL Management will recoup these costs for the city, and ensure security of earnings for thousands of downstream businesses and employees

     

    • Te Reo Putake 1.1
      8 March 2012 at 2:53 pm

      You ‘think’, Mark? No evidence of that in any of your other trolling either.

    • Psycho Milt 1.2
      8 March 2012 at 3:00 pm

      The first two words of your comment are ridiculously over-generous. But just in case I’m wrong about that, feel free to elaborate – PoAL wanted to casualise and contract out the workforce so it could reduce its cost of labour at the expense of its employees’ home lives. The workforce, as represented by Parsloe, didn’t want this to happen for obvious reasons like wanting to have a home life, not wanting to take drastic pay cuts etc. They fought it, and may well lose. Your assessment seems to be that an astute and conscientious union delegate would have simply persuaded them not to fight, but instead to sacrifice their family lives and take the pay cut because Auckland ratepayers might theoretically benefit from them doing so. Either you have no understanding of the meaning of the terms “union” or “union delegate,” or you’re just plain stupid, or there is some unlikely alternative explanation – which is it?

      • shreddakj 1.2.1
        8 March 2012 at 3:10 pm

        Is it too much to ask for both? That he’s ignorant AND stupid?

      • Mark 1.2.2
        8 March 2012 at 4:06 pm

        Let’s deal in facts.. I have a thick skin so the insults are a bit pointless.
        There was no drastic or any other pay cuts mentioned, offered, anything. This is a lie by MUNZ
        There is no wrecking of family life, or destruction of home like.. FFS, this is the 21st Century.. if you are going to collect a pretty good wage and be a shiftworker you have to have some flexibility, and POAL  were very cognisant of this in the various offers. This is bloody bullshit spouting this lie out.
        There was no drastic reduction in any conditions, except that POAL wanted to get a bit more than whatever it was.. 26, 28, 30hrs productive time for the 40 or more they were paying.
        They also reasonably wanted a bit more input into who would perform which work, and when.
        Neither of these are unreasonable, and I suspect that MUNZ intransigence on these points is probably where the decision was made to remove them from the equation. Jesus, I feel for these guys and their families, they have been used as pawns in a game that a dinosaur Union was going to lose with their attitude
        Anyway, all this negativity is wasting my time, I’m going away to work on my manifesto.. will post it soon and I’m sure you will all love it (if you can get past your crippling ideology).
        I hope a lot of these workers are back at the Port soon, manning up to negotiate their own arrangements based on a fair days work and all that, and donating Union dues to someone more deserving.

         

        • Colonial Viper 1.2.2.1
          8 March 2012 at 4:13 pm

          Thanks for the fantasy story

          One has to ask whether Gibson is in reality still working for his old masters at Maersk. We already know that POAL fails to charge the shipping companies as much as Australian ports do.

        • Psycho Milt 1.2.2.2
          8 March 2012 at 8:51 pm

          Let’s deal in facts.

          Those first few words really do give you a lot of trouble, don’t they? The casualisation and contracting out aren’t “lies,” you just happen to think they’re a good idea. But by all means do deal in facts, should you happen to come across some.

          You haven’t elaborated yet on what you imagine a union delegate less devoted to “lies” and “ego” than Mr Parsloe would have done to promote his members’ interests in this dispute. Whenever you’re ready…

    • lprent 1.3
      8 March 2012 at 3:53 pm

      Assuming that the ports get to a 12% ROE for the city over the next 4 and half years – which I find really unlikely given the incompetence displayed by the board and management teams so far, then my back of the envelope figures indicate that an optimistic (ie everything going right, no losses of business) payback for this industrial lockout to be between 8 and 12 years.

      Of course that ignores the rather large capital investments that the port actually needs for its equipment (increasing the number of cranes per vessel), transport links (the rail) to the wiri terminal, and the current issues with truck congestion.

      Basically you appear to be living in fantasy land.

      • Herodotus 1.3.1
        8 March 2012 at 4:24 pm

        lp you did not take into consideration the reduction of management salaries and the reduction of the management team. As there will be few workers to directly manage due to outsourcing (as this along with HR, training, health & safety etc) the scope and skill level required will be reduced = reduced salaries ;-).

        • lprent 1.3.1.1
          8 March 2012 at 6:13 pm

          Actually no. With a casual staff and more frequent turnover, I’d expect that the supervision requirements will increase either at PoA or in the contracting companies. Of course that will probably happen after a few people die or get severely injured and the ACC levies rise rapidly. That is the usual casualisation pattern with heavy machinery around. I suspect that is exactly what is happening at PoT over the last year.

      • Bored 1.3.2
        8 March 2012 at 7:19 pm

        You could easily get a 12% return. Simple really, sack the management and all their staff. Save all of their cost. Then contract the POA out to the Union on the basis they pay 12% return. I am sure they would find a way.

        • burt 1.3.2.1
          8 March 2012 at 8:29 pm

          Bored

          Putting my opinion of unions to one side, I actually think this is a good idea. I’ve commented a few times recently on a few different forums that the union should establish their own port.

          The union hasn’t got any skin in this game, they should put their own money where their mouth is. If a highly unionised workforce is the answer to productivity and good outcomes for rate payers and port customers – then lets see it in the real world.

      • Simon Poole 1.3.3
        8 March 2012 at 10:09 pm

        Not to mention the future value of today’s lost earnings – after inflation that $30+ million looks a whole lot bigger in 8-12 years.

        The whole thing has been poorly handled from conception.

  2. vto 2
    8 March 2012 at 2:53 pm

    I see even greater cost to come yet. I wonder if the labour far and wide are just hitting their straps.
    Been a while.

  3. Bazar 3
    8 March 2012 at 6:16 pm

    “Ports of Auckland wants to increase profits by slashing pay-packets by 20% – $6m. It won’t make the containers move faster. It will increase profits only by taking bread out of the mouths of port worker families”

    I’m reminded of retoric that the unite $15 minimum wage campaign spouted.
    “A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work”

    So what exactly changed with the the contact’s plans?
    Oh that’s right, instead of being paid for 40 hours, and only working 28 hours, they work 40 hours, and get paid 40 hours.

    That sounds…. Fair.

    I suppose if you flip the coin, you could say that by actually doing a fair day’s work, they deserve a 42% pay raise…
    But that stance is only acceptable if you believe they are currently underpaid for the actual hours they work.

    “So far, the process has cost them at least $28m.
    Add $11.5m for redundancy payments (for workers they hope to re-hire via contractors).”

    You seem to be suggesting that if the port conceeded to the union’s demands, they could of avoided those costs.

    The flip side to that is of course, the port should of sacked them sooner, and there wouldn’t of been the disruptions they suffered to date.

    I see so many lefties going on about how this is a fight for job security.
    But its not, at least not in this day an age.
    What most of the population see, is a union trying to dicate the terms of employment to the employer, and screwing the employer over in the process.

    In the end, the union has squanded any chance it had at negotating a better or fairer deal, as a result the last card, redundancy has been played.

    While i take no pleasure in seeing these families having their income destroyed, i do take satisfaction in seeing an antiquated union shattered due to its uncompromising stance, and utter stupidity in negotations.

    The largest injustice in this, is that while those families no longer have a job, the union’s president Garry Parsloe continues to collect his paycheck, despite his shocking failure.

    At the end of the day, i actually have to agree with the article’s topic, but i’d change it to:

    Management incompetence costs POAL millions, gives PoAL members redundancies in return”.

    • ghostwhowalksnz 3.1
      8 March 2012 at 7:16 pm

      Bazar , it was all ways the ports intention to replace the current workforce, and the Maritime Union ( not just port workers) had a ballot of workers to support the action to save the workers jobs

      • burt 3.1.1
        8 March 2012 at 8:45 pm

        ghostwhowalksnz

        That ballot… it’s turned out to be the tyranny of the majority.

      • Bazar 3.1.2
        8 March 2012 at 10:52 pm

        “Maritime Union ( not just port workers) had a ballot of workers to support the action to save the workers jobs”

        A leaders job is to get the best possible result. Having the majority back you, doesn’t vindicate a leaders actions or failures.

        And this result is as bad as it gets for the union workers.

        “it was all ways the ports intention to replace the current workforce”

        The question every dockworker will have asked themselves this week is: “was being made redundant better then the last offer made.”

        I expect most will find that any new employment in the docks will be far less favourable then the last contract offered and refused.

        The fact that such a decision to refuse it, was based on the vote of members that had nothing to do with the restructuring is shocking.

        As Bert said, that’s tyranny of the majority.

        But go ahead and believe that the port that spent months in negotiations, lost millions in revenue, made repeated offers to settle, and only after weeks of continued, continuous striking, resorted to mass redundancies, was all planned out from the start.

        • muzza 3.1.2.1
          9 March 2012 at 7:36 am

          Baz, where can we get a link of those contract negotiations you’re commenting from!

          Come on, lets the fibre of your fabric!

    • Draco T Bastard 3.2
      9 March 2012 at 12:03 am

      Being paid only for hours worked isn’t fair. It takes time for the worker to get to work and, as the Goblin says, time is money. It’s at least an hour each way and so that would be at least 10 hours per week. Getting paid for 28 hours to cover 38 hours of your time would, quite simply, suck and be a rip off.

  4. burt 4
    8 March 2012 at 8:44 pm

    Zetetic

    I’m writing this while listening to Brown on RNZ. It makes me sick that we fought for this creep

    I think it needs to be said; This will happen from time to time when you vote based on a person’s ideology rather than their track record and ability.

    • mac1 4.1
      8 March 2012 at 11:16 pm

      Dang, Burt, something you say that I can agree with…….. I might substitute the word ‘we’ for ‘you’, though. I can think of one or two on the right of NZ politics who got voted for on their ideology rather than their record and ability.

  5. Mehere 5
    8 March 2012 at 11:54 pm

    Garry Parsloe reminds me of my elderly 85-year-old and NZ First voting father when having a a bit of a rant about how things were much better in his day. I humour him of course and nod my head agreeingly, he’s my father and I respect him. But inside I know that the world has moved on from his outdated views. Just wondering if you guys have an issue moving on from the opinions of your forebears.

    • Colonial Viper 5.1
      9 March 2012 at 7:00 am

      But inside I know that the world has moved on from his outdated views.

      Yeah, because your Money Masters have told you that having a reliable dependable decent paying job is “outdated”.

      Funny how Gibson hasn’t suggested cutting down and contracting out his own massive $750K pa salary by 20% pa?

  6. Mel 6
    9 March 2012 at 6:33 am

    @Mehere

    It is so sad that you view standing up vehemently for workers’ pay and conditions is ‘outdated’.

    In today’s neo-liberal environment those that stand up for workers’ rights are bravely making a stand for New Zealanders’ standard of living and our economy.

    Do not believe the neo-liberal rhetoric – its simply not true – the agenda of driving down our wages continues in the absence of rigorous thinking!!

    Also, lose the ageism… it is demeaning.

    • muzza 6.1
      9 March 2012 at 7:41 am

      Mel, I’ll say it more firmly than that..

      I hold people like Mehere, Gosman, Pete, Mark et al directly responsible for the accelerating slide in NZ inc!

      The attitude and views towards fellow Kiwis and workers is simply inrcedulous to me, and it is people who hold view such as them, which will allow the decsent to continue..

  7. randal 7
    9 March 2012 at 4:27 pm

    what really stuck in my craw was yesterdays msn news poll which had support for POAL greater than the workers.
    how the hell did anyone here not notice and do something about it?

  8. KJT 8
    10 March 2012 at 11:13 am

    Great. Now POAL have got rid of the workers who were paying tax.
     
    They are to be replaced with Allied workforce workers subsidised out of yours and my taxes. WFF and Benefits to casual workers.
     
    How Allied workforce manages to exist is that the State, you and me,  picks up the tab for their workers when they do not have work for them.

    Subsidising Allied’s profits.