Officer dodges van in protest | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

A waterfront picket at the Port of Napier during the weekend fired up into a verbal scuffle and left a police officer scrambling out of the path of a van carrying what unionists described as "outside" workers.

The brief flurry of activity was the only potentially dangerous incident since picketers set up at the two main port entrances at 6am last Saturday, although barriers had been set up to keep picketers off port land.

Police had taken no action and said it was a misunderstanding. The driver of the van taking the workers into the port had failed to stop when directed to by the police officer.

Some picketers had also been threatened with trespass notices before barriers were put up along the roadside and down to the beachfront.

More than 100 protesting workers, local, national and six from the maritime Union of Australia, are picketing in shifts in the wake of the port company awarding a container handling contract to Tauranga-based company International Stevedoring Services.

The Maritime Union of New Zealand said the move would lead to job losses among the 25 permanent and 60 casual workers employed by former container contract holder, Hawke's Bay Stevedoring.

But the Port of Napier disputed there would be major job losses and locals would still be offered work under the new contract.

The port also disputed that ISS workers were non-union labour as they were part of the Amalgamated Stevedores Union.

Port CEO Garth Cowie said the contract had been awarded after an intensive tendering process.

For one of the visiting unionists, Joe Deakin from Sydney, it was an issue of what he called "denying the most basic of rights, the right to work."

He said the port's move had "excluded workers who want to be part of a union."

Maritime Union of New Zealand spokesman Victor Billot said the pickets would continue until Wednesday when mediation talks were planned. The union's stance was they would not back down from what they described as an employment situation which would have international repercussions.