CTU Pledges Support to Striking Port Workers

The Bluff port company, Southport, is setting a very poor example as a public employer and the Council of Trade Unions will be organising all the assistance possible to ensure that workers there get a fair pay deal, CTU president Ross Wilson said today.
The workers, who are members of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union, began a 48-hour strike at midday today.

The RMTU says many of those on the picket line are paid less than $10 an hour, and haven't had a pay rise since 1992.

Ross Wilson said it was inexcusable for a wealthy port company in a wealthy region to refuse any pay increase to its employees for more than a decade.

"This sort of behaviour by a publicly-owned company has left the workers with no alternative but strike action.

"It is time that Southport management came into the 21st century and left the exploitative tactics of the Employment Contracts Act behind them," Ross Wilson said.