Union issues sixth strike notice

Ports of Auckland has slammed the decision by its waterfront workers to strike for a sixth time at the end of the month as ‘‘highly irresponsible’’ and says it strengthens its resolve to sack them.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand filed a 24-hour strike notice starting at 7am on January 31.

Port chief executive Tony Gibson said the strike ‘‘will do nothing to end the dispute other than to strengthen our resolve to sort this out once and for all’’.

The port would use non-union staff to maintain port operations, and would go ahead with consultation over plans to contract out the labour and make the union workers redundant, Gibson said.

The latest action comes after the Council of Trade Unions said it was seriously concerned about the wharfies’ dispute, where more than 300 workers face losing their jobs.

‘‘Our management team and board have a duty to apply a commercial approach and to act in the best interests of Aucklanders, now and over the longer term,’’ Gibson said.

Council of Trade Unions president Helen Kelly is in Auckland this week to support the union, and said that port management acted in an ‘‘unprincipled way’’ in mediation. The CTU’S main objectives were to let the people of Auckland know what was going on at the port, where 320 people will probably be dismissed for unjustified reasons.

There was an agenda at work of privatising the port, which will result in the council owning assets and land, and private companies taking the profit from stevedoring, Kelly said.

Gibson had said that he was not opposed to the privatisation of the port regardless of the views of the mayor and the people of Auckland, she said. This completed the puzzle on the reasons why settlement of the port agreement was not achieved last week.