Meet The Wharfies - Racist and Sexist

The Stranded has reposted stories of some of the workers who claim to earn under the $91,000 average. This is to be welcomed, some real life case studies of the sort of chaps down their doing good honest half days of work. So Meet the Wharfies.

Now I will let you meet the real culture of the Wharfies they didn't want to share. Stronger Together.

Unless you are from Tuvalu or a woman.

It doesn't take much of a google to see the sort of chaps who work on the Ports of Auckland Wharf. They sure keep the Employment Court amused and busy. The mainstream media briefly touched on the problems late last year when it was buried in election coverage.

This is the case of Andrew Angus and another for Graham "Coach" McKean. Good K1W1 blokes down at the Wharf. Both Senior members of the team.

The net result was that a Judge after meeting them suggested the Human Rights Commission be called in to assist as there was such a problem down at the Wharf.

In two judgments, dealing with bids for interim reinstatement of the two men to their roles, Judge Graeme Colgan, at the Employment Court, said Ports of Auckland needed to “engage external professional advice, the likes of the Human Rights Commission, to deal with the problem”.

Colgan said the circumstances of the dismissals indicated that the “engagement of Tuvaluan stevedores on the Auckland waterfront has been met with a degree of hostility by some members of the existing workforce”.

He said the summary dismissal of Andrew Angus, who wrote the note slipped under the door, and Graham McKean, who wrote the magazine article, had been Ports of Auckland’s “reaction to what it perceives to be racist elements in its workforce”.

Angus slipped this note under the door of a POAL administrator

Then there is "Coach". Coach is/was an executive member of the Local 13, the Auckland local branch of the Maritime Union and has appeared in pickets despite his dismissal. He wrote a column that I link to here with excerpts at [8] and [9].

It raised the ire of many who complained including a Pacific Island worker and others who identified themselves in the details

Coach's defense for re-instatement was that he was acting in the capacity as a Union rep at the time and that if action was to be taken it should be against MUNZ!! Stronger together!!!

After all the article was published in the Union magazine available to some 1,200 members and non-members, edited by the Union itself. They claim they "missed the editing window" of their own publication. Yeah right.

I am unconcerned at the outcome of the pending employment disputes here. I am more concerned at highlighting that even in 2011 the Maritime Union is acting true to form and promoting racist, sexist K1W1 attitudes. That "Coach" was allowed back on the picket line as a representative shows that MUNZ condone his behaviour.

It is little wonder that the third woman on the Wharf Helen Kelly and the Labour Party hierarchy are hesitant to get right in behind the Maritime Union on this one. The underlying culture is still stuck in 1951 and not one person has defended the Union record from my post the other day.

I would stick a bounty on anyone sending Whaleoil and myself a picture of David Shearer shaking hands with this prehistoric creature called "Coach" to start with.

It will be a PR disaster for anyone seen hugging this lot.