Ports of Auckland

The crisis at New Zealand’s main port came to a head in early 2021, with a damning report into health and safety coming on top of ongoing congestion and major delays in an automation project.

Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson resigned in May 2021, after major ructions and public anger made his position “untenable.”

Auckland City, the owners of POAL, and the Transport Minister Michael Wood have made it clear they expect a different path in the future.

The Ports now faces a long and difficult path to get back on track. The question remains how one of the country’s most important transport hubs got things so badly wrong.

Systemic failings

Ports of Auckland management have been slated in a major report that found its health and safety culture had systemic failings.

This was just one strand of multiple issues that have seen the Ports struggling in recent times.

The release of the independent report into health and safety came after several deaths at the Ports in recent years, and was commissioned by the owners of POAL – Auckland City.

Following a disastrous press conference in the wake of the report’s release, Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson went to ground, refusing to answer questions despite being the head of a major publicly-owned enterprise.

A stopwork meeting of MUNZ members at the Ports of Auckland in April this year voted no confidence in Tony Gibson as CEO, and a community delegation delivered a letter asking that Tony Gibson resign to Ports of Auckland management.

Journalist Andrea Vance wrote in the aftermath of the report that the CEO’s position was “not tenable.”

“Firstly, because he failed in a moral obligation to protect staff … Secondly, the man who oversaw ‘a culture of retribution’ cannot be entrusted to implement an adequate health and safety regime.”

The Mayor of Auckland Phil Goff, who commissioned the report, said he had been disturbed by what he had found out about the Ports health and safety.

“The port was twice convicted for the fatalities of the first two cases where the investigations are complete – that tells me that there needs to be change at the port.”

The report made a number of recommendations, including new requirements for the Ports’ chief executive to prioritise safety over productivity and profitability, improving trust and communication between management and staff, and for a new health and safety manager to report directly to the CEO and Board.

Minister of Transport Michael Wood stepped in with a statement demanding action at the Ports. “There have been prosecutions which have successfully gone through the courts, which has spoken to a failure to follow through on the duties that are imposed on the Ports of Auckland as an employer. That is unacceptable,” he said.

“Did not know” what was happening

Despite the findings, and an admission from CEO Tony Gibson he “did not know” what had been happening at the Ports during a press conference, it appeared the plan was to wait out the media furore and keep on in his role with the support of the Board.

There seemed to be a disconnect at the Management and Board level of POAL about how the situation was playing out in public, with Chair Bill Osborne locked into a strategy of defending his CEO no matter how indefensible the situation was.

The idea of placing the same leader in charge of fixing the problems he presided over was a very bad look. The Council were obviously furious at the situation.

The Maritime Union had repeatedly warned that practices at the port would end in workers being hurt. Now MUNZ led calls that a culture change was required at POAL – starting with the CEO being replaced. Our Union says until managers and Boards of Directors are held personally accountable for deaths and injuries caused by poor safety, nothing will change. That is why we have committed to campaigning for stronger laws around corporate manslaughter.

The issues at the POAL had their roots in the aggressive anti-union agenda of management and in particular CEO Tony Gibson, whose decade long reign was marked by major industrial disputes.

The attacks on the Union peaked during the Ports of Auckland dispute in 2011 and 2012 when there was an attempt to sack the workforce – a tactic that eventually failed, although the cost to the Union was heavy.

The “Save Our Port” campaign ground on for months, with a massive march along the Auckland waterfront, and major media coverage.

The ITF under the leadership of Paddy Crumlin declared Auckland a “port of convenience” and major international solidarity efforts were made by the MUA and ILWU. The late Helen Kelly, then CTU President, played a pivotal role in supporting the campaign.

A changed situation

The damage to the morale of the workforce and the cost to POAL both financially and in its public standing were extreme. The outcome was an aggressively anti-union management culture contributed to an environment where productivity was put before health and safety.

However, as time progressed, union membership has increased at the Ports of Auckland. The agenda to create a deunionized Port was eventually defeated. Time has moved on and in the post–COVID world, the free market ideology of the 1980s and 1990s has been buried by history.

The need for social responsibility and security has been recognized as more important than the short-term, “profit first” mind set.

But further change is needed. We can’t afford to have another Ports of Auckland, where unaccountable management were allowed to get away with unacceptable practices for so long.