The New Zealand Herald reported in an article called “Port strike backed in NZ and beyond:”
Auckland’s waterfront dispute has spread to other ports and a visiting American unionist yesterday described it as an “international incident”.
“There’s huge international support – I mean this is an international incident at this point,” said International Longshore and Warehouse Union vice-president Ray Familathe, as 300 Auckland port workers reached the 10th day of a four-week strike.
“It has gone beyond reason, the management seems to be on a destructive path here, which just seems to have no common sense about achieving some balance in the collective agreement between management and labour.”
As he addressed a meeting of the strike workers, unionists in Wellington continued a blockade against a Maersk ship which unloaded containers in Auckland last week, although a court injunction allowed a second vessel to finish a call at Tauranga.
Mr Familathe, who is also second vice-chairman of the International Transport Federation’s dockers section, expects to be joined by 16 other representatives of his union and a 45-member labour delegation from Australia in a march in Queen St on Saturday.
Mr Familathe’s union has 42,000 members, mainly dock workers on the West Coast of the United States, Hawaii and Alaska, and in British Columbia, Canada.
Asked how the presence of outside unionists could be conducive to a settlement, rather than raising the temperature, he said they were coming to learn what was happening in their industry. “I do know there’s a pledge from dock workers’ unions throughout the world to support the Maritime Union of New Zealand.
“They are very good trade unionists who have supported other causes and the pledge for support and solidarity has been there from the trade union movement.
“This is really a battle about the working class in New Zealand – you can see this same attack taking place in ports throughout the world.”
His union knew “exactly” what the port workers were going through, having just last month signed a collective agreement achieved after almost two years and the arrests of hundreds of its members at a grain export operation in Washington State.