Wellington

ᔥ The Telegraph

Queen Sofia of Spain has been ordered to turn down an invitation from the Queen to a Diamond Jubilee lunch for the world’s sovereign monarchs because of an escalating diplomatic row over Gibraltar.

Someone needs to tell the Spanish they are dreamin’. They aren’t going to get Gibraltar back. Ever. British politicians will be thrown out of office if they let Gibraltar go, and the Spanish have never beaten the Poms in a war, and are suspected as being almost as good at marching backwards as the Italians.

Maybe they should consider giving back Ceuta and Melilla.

Someone else could point out that a good part of New Zealand is named after Poms who saved the dagos sorry arses from Napoleon. Wellington, Nelson, Salamanca Road, Trafalgar Park are all named after Britain fighting to save the spanish from the french and their own uselessness.

ᔥ Stuff.co.nz

Heritage? Really?

The heritage building was built in the late 1950s and is listed for protection on the council’s district plan.

Though the facade is corroding and a safety risk, the building is otherwise structurally sound, according to engineers.

via the tipline

The Employment Court in Wellington has granted an injunction to CentrePort against against MUNZ & RMTU in Wellington. The ship they are currently blacklisting will now be worked.

As more details come to hand I will post them.

Once again the Maritime Union and the RMTU have been shown to be ignorant of NZ Labour laws. Once again Garry Parlsoe’s empty threats that ships won;t be worked has proven false.

UPDATE: From NewstalkZB

Staff at Wellington’s CentrePort have been ordered to unload a ship they had blacklisted after it was loaded by non-union workers in Auckland.

The Employment Court has granted an injunction against the Maritime Union and the Rail and Maritime Transport Union.

That means both unions are prevented from stopping their members working on the Maersk Aberdeen.

Despite the claims of Garry Parsloe that not a single ship would be worked at Fergusson Terminal at the Ports of Auckland, ships are being worked and turned around in record time.

Lisa Schulte – Arrived pilot 0500 yesterday morning.  Vessel discharged 715 containers. ETD was this morning approximately 1000 hours – discharge completed ahead of schedule and sailed last night at 19:16.

Maersk Brani  - ETA 0600 Wednesday 7^th March. Expected exchange approximately 380 moves, ETD later same day.

Passat Spring -  ETA 2130 hours Wednesday 7^th March commencing work 0700 Thursday 8^th March. Total exchange approximately 1100 exchange.

The court hearing in Wellington has finished – the Judge has reserved his decision until early afternoon.

The Maritime Union have flown in the bruvvers to assist and Matthew Dearnely in the Herald this morning repeats all their bravado, including this from a stroppy American unionist:

“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.”

I wonder why Matthew Dearnely didn’t mention that this Longshore unionist, who has been quoted in his papers, is the same unionist who threatened a POAL staffer in 2010 (when Ports was considering bringing in competing stevedores on the wharf) saying “we know how to deal with people like you in the US” and “don’t ever come to the States”?

I hope while Ray Familathe is here he asks the Maritime Union to share how much their Stevedores get because given his current pay arrangements perhaps he is looking for job here.

The Maritime Union continues to endorse racism, bullying and sexism. I’m not sure why they think that meddling unionists from overseas are welcome here to meddle in our industrial relations.

One thing is for sure, Ports of Auckland continues to unload and load ships without the union bully-boys of the Maritime Union. Every ship that is processed drives a nail into the heart of the union cause. No wonder half of their members no longer show up ont he picket, some having bolted to Australia for work. They have given up.

CentrePort in Wellington must be a bunch of tools to not see this coming. The Port of Tauranga went to court successfully on Sunday to get a blanket injunction against secondary strike action.

An industrial dispute at Wellington’s port heads to court this morning, with a Maritime Union Wellington spokesman saying they expect to be ordered back to work.

A fully loaded 14,000-tonne cargo ship remains in limbo at Wellington’s wharf as industrial action at the Port of Auckland spreads across the country.

Unionised cargo workers at the capital’s port declined to handle the Maersk Aberdeen when it came into port on Friday because it had been worked on by non-unionised workers in Auckland.

The ship has been “blacked” by Wellington wharfies, with Maritime Union members picketing the port during the weekend.

Yesterday, CentrePort announced it would seek a court injunction from the Employment Court to force the workers to handle the ship. The hearing was set to start at 9.30am today.

This morning, Maritime Union Wellington secretary Mike Clark said it expected to be ordered back to work today.

“That’s usually how these things go.”

Workers would comply with any court ruling, he said.

“You can’t disobey a court order.”

How about the Maritime Union comply with the law about secondary strikes.

Grant Robertson is seeking some help. He wants suggestions on how to improve Wellington.

It is an interesting site. It carries an authorisation statement, but not a single logo of the Labour party, nor a parliamentary crest so he must be paying for it himself which would be a first for a socialist.

It also asks for contact details. Grant has done this before. There is no privacy statement about what he plans to do with people’s emails?  Is this another of Grant’s email harvesting exercises?

If you sign up to give Grant suggestions for Wellington then expect to be spammed with begging letters from Chris Flatt and Labour.

As for ideas, here are some of mine:

A 24kg Kingfish caught at Oriental Bay, Wellington.

It appears the “Occupy” movement are a bunch of blouses:

Occupy Wellington is moving on from its Civic Square site after the group’s growing frustrations about certain “physical elements” of camping.

The group has been camping in Civic Square for 58 days and says that phase is now over and it is time for “Occupy 2.0″.

Richard, one of the protesters, said the group was in talks with real estate agents and the council about utilising a building in the central city.

“I don’t expect they will give us something for free but we could help do a place up in exchange for using it.”

He said most of the protesters had moved on from Civic Square but some had stayed behind.

Blouses and losers.

Meanwhile for a bit of a laugh pop over to The Rock and check out their visit to “Occupy” Auckland this morning with a weed whacker.