Sixteen staff face the axe at the port, which sold a NZ$21.6m half-stake to the North Island’s Port of Tauranga last year, in a bid to become New Zealand’s major hub port.
“The industry is in chaos, locally owned ports competing with one another in a country our size doesn’t make sense, and the situation in Timaru is just another symptom of that wider problem,” said Wane Butson, general secretary of the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMTU).
It’s been an unsteady few years for the port, which has seen container volumes plummet in recent years, with freight instead being shipped through Lyttelton Port of Christchurch or Port Otago.
“Last time jobs were slashed at Timaru port it was because foreign owned shipping companies pulled out of the container trade, this time we’re doing it to ourselves,” explained Mr Butson.
Now, the RMTU says that if the port continues this way, it will become “little more than a landlord, clipping the ticket for every container, tonne of break bulk cargo and log that crosses the wharf”.
PrimePort Timaru is proposing to make workers redundant and ‘offer them an interview’ with other stevedores in a bid “to make them more flexible”.
And it’s thought that having entities owned by Tauranga taking over the South Canterbury workforce could only be aimed at driving down wages.
“In our experience, changing employers on a competitive model is all about cutting wages, reducing job security and lining the pockets of people in boardrooms,” added Mr Butson.
The RMTU says the growing problem now requires the central government to come up with a national ports strategy that will meet the needs of workers, tax and rate payers and the business community.
