Media in New Zealand are reporting heavily on the Ports of Auckland dispute, including this analysis today:

Almost 300 Ports of Auckland workers being asked to reapply for their jobs will struggle to regain their previous employment conditions through legal action, an employment law expert says.

After a long-running industrial dispute, the port company announced yesterday that it would make 292 workers redundant at a cost of $11 million, and ask them to reapply through outside stevedoring contractors.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand said this morning that it believed the proposed dismissals were “unlawful” and had asked the Employment Court for a ruling.

The dismissals undermined the bargaining for the collective agreement given that the union believed it was still in a negotiation process, and the job losses amounted to an unlawful lockout, it said.

Minter Ellison legal partner Jennifer Mills said the union might be able to delay the dismissals or even win damages through a legal challenge, but Employment Court action probably wouldn’t restore the workers’ jobs in their previous form.

“Even if Ports of Auckland’s decision is found to be procedurally flawed, this is likely to be something of a hollow victory for the union and its members.

“Unless the union can show that Ports of Auckland’s decision was not substantively justified, any remedies will most likely be limited to financial awards. That may be cold comfort for employees made redundant.”

Mills said the courts would be reluctant to question a commercial decision by a company, especially when the company could show genuine business reasons for the decision.

Union president Garry Parsloe was standing firm this morning, saying that there was “no way” the Maritime Union members would reapply for jobs with the contractors.

Ports of Auckland had given “little consideration” throughout the process to the workers’ response to plans to contract out their stevedoring work, he said.

“We set out in detail all the problems with their proposal, but they have clearly just been going through the motions, and pushing ahead with their plan to take away job security for workers.”

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