LABOUR SOLIDARITY/NEW ZEALAND:

STOP CONTRACTING-OUT AT PORT OF NAPIER:

The Port of Napier in the North Island of New Zealand faces industrial disruption and international union solidarity actions as local workers prepare to defend their livelihoods. The Maritime Union of New Zealand says management actions are putting secure local jobs in jeopardy and threatening the future of the port. A decision by the Port of Napier management to contract pout container stevedoreing to an anti-union operator will affect about 25 permanent jobs and around 60 casual jobs at Hawke's Bay Stevedoreing Services from the start of 2008. The situation has had an enormous impact on local workers, and will lead to inevitable attacks on wages, conditions and health and safety in the future. Secure local jobs that benefit the local community are under attack through what is effectively a contracting-out process. The Hawke's Bay Regional Council owned Port of Napier has a responsibility to the local community and should operate in the public interest by employing a skilled, secure and unionized workforce.

Send messages to the Council asking them to support the local community that they supposedly represent. Join this campaign at http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=314