Today's mediation fails to resolve dispute

Once again mediation has failed to find a resolution to the increasingly bitter, eight month long Ports of Auckland dispute.

The Ports Company today tabled what it describes as a "constructive" offer, making a number of advances on its previous offers.

But it says the Union failed to bend at all on its position.

The Port's now suggesting the parties use the Employment Relations Authority's facilitation process - and says the union will consider that proposal overnight.

Meanwhile, Labour wants more from the Ports of Auckland following its admission it released personal details of a striking wharfie.

The company apologises for it any distress it caused but says Cecil Walker put himself in the firing line by speaking out publicly about the ports dispute.

Labour MP Darien Fenton says she's glad the employers came clean and admitted they got it wrong.

But she doesn't think that goes far enough.

"I think the Privacy Commissioner still needs to look into this it seems to me to be a pretty unprofessional way to handle an industrial dispute and particularly in regards to that worker who had lost his wife and had bereavement leave and other things."