Auckland Save our port rally: ITF speech

News Release International Transport Federation (ITF) March 9, 2012

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<A name=OLE_LINK2></A><A name=OLE_LINK1>9 March 2012</A>
Auckland Save our
port rally: ITF speech
ITF (International Transport
Workers’ Federation) dockers’ section secretary Frank Leys will tell dockers,
their families and supporters rallying in Auckland tomorrow that 400,000 dockers
worldwide are backing them in their struggle to save jobs. 
 
His message comes just days after
the ITF was forced to declare Auckland a ‘port of convenience’, following its
CEO’s decision to make over 300 dockers compulsorily redundant (see
<A
href="redir.aspx?C=4ec79c5d83314d84a56f1611eff544c3&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.itfglobal.org%2fpress-area%2findex.cfm%2fpressdetail%2f7124"
target=_blank>www.itfglobal.org/press-area/index.cfm/pressdetail/7124</A>).
 
Speaking at the Save our port rally,
which commences at 16:00 on Saturday 10 March*,Frank Leys will say:

 
“You, the workers of the Ports of
Auckland asked for a fair deal.
 
In return you have received
privatisation, casualisation and job insecurity from a management that has shied
away from good faith negotiation and instead embraced confrontation with its own
workforce.
 
This dispute is a major turning
point for trade union relations in New Zealand just like Liverpool in the UK,
Patrick’s in Australia and Ports Package 1 and 2 for Europe. We are standing on
the edge of a change which would mean disaster for future generations of
workers. Employment with no security, no benefits and no rights to trade union
protection. We can’t let that change happen. 
 
We live in a society where bankers
can empty the vaults of the state to feed their own greed and it is the working
class who have to pay to fill the deep holes that are left behind. The liberal
governments have looked the other way and the only solution for the problems
that are now on the table is more deregulation in order to liberalise and in
order to privatise. 
 
Unions around the world are
portrayed as the cause of trouble and the cause of discontent amongst workers,
but the reality is that unions are fighting for a fair deal for their members in
this unbalanced society. Unions don’t fit the liberal agenda and that is why big
business and government are so keen to see the back of them. But we won’t let
that happen. 
 
Dockers have always been in the
vanguard of the trade union movement. That is why they and their members are now
being targeted by the European commission, by multinational conglomerates on the
West Coast of the US and now here in Auckland. 
 
Four hundred thousand dockers want
the workers of Auckland to know they are not alone in this fight. They will not
stand idle when their brothers and sisters are under siege. They are protesting
in their ports, they are contacting their New Zealand embassies, they are
letting the world know that this fight is far from over and when you take on
dockers at the Ports of Auckland you take ondockers all over the
world.
We stand by your side in this
dispute and your call for a fair deal will not be silenced.”
 
*For more details of the rally see
<A
href="redir.aspx?C=4ec79c5d83314d84a56f1611eff544c3&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.saveourport.com"
target=_blank>http://www.saveourport.com</A>
 
For more about the international
support for Auckland’s wharfies see <A
href="redir.aspx?C=4ec79c5d83314d84a56f1611eff544c3&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.itfglobal.org%2fsolidarity%2fsolidarity-3502.cfm"
target=_blank>www.itfglobal.org/solidarity/solidarity-3502.cfm</A>
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