MUNZ

The Maritime Union caused one of the longest industrial disputes in the last decade striking against the Ports of Auckland when the Ports wanted to make their port more efficient.

MUNZ held the port to ransom, trying to protect $92,000 a year plus jobs for working 27 hours a week at an unproductive port that was not producing adequate returns to their owner, the ratepayers of Auckland. Section 97 meant that the Ports of Auckland were unable to replace striking or locked out workers with temporary workers while they continued the negotiations, causing disproportionate financial costs to the Port.

The law is so ludicrous that during the industrial dispute when crucial equipment broke down the Port bought in temporary labour and were fined $40,000 for employing contractors to keep the port running.  Read more »

The nasty bully-boys at the Maritime Union took the new union down at Ports of Auckland (PortPro) to the Employment Relations Authority, challenging their right to exist as a union.

They kept their action very quiet, normally they are leaking to their embedded mates at the Herald the moment they do these things. There is a good reason they kept it quiet though…they lost.

[29] Accordingly I determine that the Rules of the Respondent having been deemed to be compliant at the time of registration by the Registrar, there are no grounds for the Authority to make an order in accordance with s 17(2) of the Act directing the Registrar to cancel Portpro’s registration as a union on the basis that the Rules are not compliant with s 14(1)(a) of the Act.

Costs
[30] Costs are reserved pending the final determination of the matter.

I hope MUNZ gets slammed with substantial costs for their anti-competitive bully boy tactics.

[Source document pdf]

Well MUNZ seem to be still on summer holiday as they have only filed their revised accounts up to 2009. I could appreciate a small delay on not filing the 2010 and 2011 updated accounts but he only problem is that they have missed the deadline on filing their 2012 accounts.

The Incorporated Societies Registrar has received the full financial accounts from EPMU but have yet to upload on the website.  Read more »

Attached is the RE-Filed accounts for 2009 – so far MUNZ has lodged up to 2009 (still a few more years to go) as ordered by the Registrar.

However there is a very interesting read in the 2008 comparative.

Firstly MUNZ never filed their orginial 2008 accounts. However with the whole combined accounts now you can see why. In the 2008 income comparative there is a $200k transfer from the welfare fund just below the proceeds from the sale of property.

Since this is now consolidated accounts the question are:

Which Branch took the welfare fund and pocketed it into their branch fund?

Did they use it to hide big branch losses?

Did the members know their funds were flogged?

Note 5 and 6 shows big amounts owing to IRD as well – did they use the Welfare Funds to pay off the IRD?

from the MUNZ web site:

How can a Union that insists on Good Faith Bargaining state that it is a militant advocate for industrial, political and social rights?

These days, the most frequent use of the word militant precedes the words Islamist Fundamentalists.

Militant is not good.

The Maritime Union is having to update their accounting records with the Societies Commission. It isn’t pretty reading

The 2005 Accounts shows a previously undisclosed provision for settlement with the IRD of $340,000.00

Questions:

Why is a settlement required?

What was it for?

What event happened in as $340,000.00 is a very substantial amount?

More to follow….

Remember First Union hit with a $250,000.00 IRD audit bill as well.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand are just starting file their correct financial statements and have released their 2005, 2006 and 2007 Accounts

A quick perusal shows that income received was actually $2.5M in 2007 against the original declaration of $ 573k

Operating expenses was $1.6M more than originally declared.

Full declaration of the consolidated accounts was requested by the Registrar of Incorporated Societies.

The Balance Sheet also shows an $11M increase in assets with $10.1M in fixed term investments.

The 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 Accounts are still to be filed.

More to follow….

Just to give a quick recap – the Owl only uses information freely available in the public domain. The Owl is also happy to congratulate unions who are good operators for their members.

I have always been impressed with the Rail and Transport Maritime Union accounts and they recently filed a great surplus, good re-investment policies and very clear and precise accounts. Well done and the members should be pleased with their executive.

The recent wrangling over the inter-islander negotiations is part of business we can generally accept and the Owl knows the recent settlement there was a certain amount of “huff and puff” but overall a settlement is a settlement which means both employer and employee are happy.

NZCTU President Helen Kelly made a public announcement on their website yesterday stating she was happy the Len Brown was going to get more involved the dispute and sort this so called “crazy POAL/MUNZ situation” out.

Owl’s Observation

I agree with Helen Kelly because the Rail and Maritime Transport Union are clearly impressed with the Ports of Tauranga model that they have invested $404,287.00 in Ports of Tauranga shares. The value of their shares increased in $82,828.00 in their last financial year.

That is a 20% return/increase for union members. Fantastic investment!

What does Helen Kelly do – asks RMT Union to divest and stand in solidarity with MUNZ or banish RMT union from the NZCTU?

Wonder how the next press conference is going to look like when asked why affiliated members of the NZCTU are happy to invest in the Ports of Tauranga model and yet argue against POAL vision?

Helen Kelly’s endorses Cameron Slater’s work for the Unions at the Labour Conference 2012 – by the Owl

Front and centre stage – there she was in full light and radiant smile.

That soon turned to grief as she read stories of young men dying at work from our nation’s poor health and safety culture. A great read and the touchstone of how desperate we are as a nation to reconcile work place safety and building a good business model.

I nodded and agreed as the words flowed off her well written and delivered speech. The Owl has always supported health and safety measures

Then as I was almost crushed at my failure to not speak out more on these issues as a citizen…I was truly inspired…then Helen moved from saving our sons to you guessed it …the Ports.

My eyes lit up only to find that the biggest reason the Ports strike became a national issue was because of none other than CAMERON SLATER.

Helen Kelly credits Cameron Slater for helping the Maritime Union and the Unions in getting the nation to support the Port workers.

I quote direct from her speech:

 “The Port’s plans attracted little outrage from the political community outside of Labour and the Greens.  Only when it deliberately breached the privacy of some of its workers to blogger Cameron Slater, did any other politician express true outrage. It was ok to dismiss and replace the workforce, but not to breach their privacy. ”

Observation by the Owl

So that meant, National, Act, Mana Party, The Maori Party and NZ First didn’t give a damn.  60% of Politicians were quite happy the way things were going until Cameron Slater put his nose in.

I would have a guess that Greens didn’t give a damn either because their mandate would be to close down wharfs anyway.

However I finally found the road block to the stalled negotiations in her speech on Saturday. She wrote:

“The Port has not moved in the facilitation – I have attended many of them”.

MUNZ went nuts and filed a claim of breach of good faith at POAL about breaching the Facilitators confidentiality agreement and yet NZCTU President who has attended “most” breaches the rules and delivers the details to a national conference.

More major governance issues at the NZCTU and a complete lack of understanding of ‘good faith bargaining” from the gatekeeper.

I would bet a $1.00 she had to sign a confidentiality agreement or at least been party to it.

PS: is there something going on between Cam and Helen????

Is there a Governance Crisis at the NZCTU? – An Observation by The Owl

Over the last few months 2 of the 6 (technically) affiliated unions (NZ Meat Workers Union and Maritime Union of NZ) who get to vote on David Shearer’s future have been put under the spotlight by the Registrar of the Incorporated Societies. It has been proven they have both failed to file complete returns with the Registrar.

The NBR also questioned a 3^rd union, the EPMU, on their balance sheet regarding a Pike River Trust. The EPMU have been reporting losses and the EPMU Education and Training Trust fund for members remains solvent only because the EPMU does not demand the $6M loan back as qualified by their auditors. (The Trust assets are approximately $3M.)

A number of so called affiliate unions to the NZCTU have been reporting losses, failing to declare income for GST purposes and generally been late with their financial returns. But to be fair some unions are good at compliance.

The ultimate responsibility of the NZCTU is to their members. Are there governance policies in place at the NZCTU head office to manage its individual unions when they fall out of line?

The Owl asks, is there a governance crisis? Here is a great example of good governance by a governing body.

When the Otago Rugby Union got into trouble – the NZ Rugby Union went down there, told them to sort themselves out and if they didn’t the NZRFU would liquidate them. The Board was changed and a number of people stood down. This is good governance from the top and Otago flourished on the field in 2012. The word on the street is it is a pretty happy camp now – a good dose of “tough love”

Owl’s Observation

The Owl believes the Labour Party Executive should demand that the NZCTU develop a good governance model to manage their affiliates if they want to get 20% of the voting rights.

The Labour Party Executive can exercise their governance control and meet with the NZCTU just like the NZ Rugby Union did with the Otago Rugby Union.

Current day unions only represent between 6-9% of the workers in private industry. Does this means the Labour Party is being distracted by pleasing a few when actually they are missing out on potentially serving the 94% of working voters?

The Owl is looking forward to analysing the results of the Labour Party Conference