The Maritime Union is calling for a national inquiry into port safety after another worker's death.
The incident at Ports of Auckland involved a stevedore employed by Wallace Investments. The worker, named as Otara resident and new father Atiroa Tuaiti, 26, fell from a height while loading and unloading freight on Tuesday.
It's the fourth death at the port since 2017.
Tuaiti grew up on Aitutaki in the Cook Islands before moving to south Auckland when he was a teenager and attending Mt Roskill Grammar, NZ Herald reported. He had worked at the port for several years.
"He [Tuaiti] was a really good loving son, brother, cousin, uncle to many family out there - not forgetting a father to his handsome son and to his beautiful partner," one relative told the Herald.
Footage from the port showed colleagues of Tuaiti performing a haka around his body while his partner Kura has been left utterly "heartbroken" following his death.
The death has renewed safety concerns at the port and comes after a review last year which found the need for improvements to health and safety after three previous deaths.
National secretary of the Maritime Union, Craig Harrison, is calling for a national inquiry into port safety.
"The difference would be the review was focused on the Ports of Auckland and if we look right around our country, we would find the same process and management right around the country," Harrison told AM on Wednesday.
"It's an industry under stress at the moment because the volume of work is going up, people are working long hours and if you think of the size of the industry, we aren't that big compared to the construction industry but we feature really highly on the deaths and serious harm."
Harrison said it's not unheard of for employees to work 70-hours in a seven day period and wants to see a national standard or a code of practice which is enforceable brought in to improve health and safety in the industry.
"They [the review] came up with some recommendations and we have seen numerous companies fined …. but what we haven't got is regulations that are enforceable under law," he told AM.
"When you compare us to the trucking industry, where you have hours of work, licensing, we need that sort of control brought into what is a pretty dangerous industry."
Harrison said the relationship between the Maritime Union and the Ports of Auckland has improved after the independent review in March 2021 found it was so bad it was hampering health and safety policies.
"If you look at the wider industry, we have made a lot of noise around the country about lifting health and safety in the ports," he said.
"For a small industry, we feature really highly and if you compare us to the construction industry, years ago it was in a bit of a state, but now you don't hear about it at all."
wattch the full interview with Craig Harrison above.
