Dockers' unions sound 'port package three' warning

News Release International Transport Federation (ITF) September 27, 2012

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD><TITLE></TITLE>
<META content="text/html; charset=unicode" http-equiv=Content-Type>
<META name=GENERATOR content="MSHTML 8.00.6001.19298"></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV>
<A name=OLE_LINK2></A><A name=OLE_LINK1>26 September
2012</A>
Dockers' unions sound 'port package three' warning
Leaders of dockers’ unions
affiliated to the ETF (European Transport’ Workers’ Federation and the ITF
(International Transport Workers’ Federation) met today at the ITF Maritime
Roundtable in Casablanca to explore the future of dock work in Europe. Their
meeting followed an action and information day on 25th September 2012
that was intended to send a strong signal to the European Commission (EC) on the
day it held a European ports policy review conference in Brussels.
 
On the same day, members of the
Oficiaismar union in Portugal took part in a second national strike in protest
at government proposals to relax employment regulations in the ports there.

 
Dockers’ union leaders at
the Maritime Roundtable warned that the attack on Portuguese dock work
is “the shape of things to come” and signals a concerted attempt by the European
Commission to liberalise the port industry in Europe. This, they claimed, will
result in an increase in casualisation, the erosion of trade union rights and a
lowering of health and safety standards and conditions that dockers and their
unions have fought to secure for over 100years.
 
Similar Europe-wide legislation, in
the form of port packages one and two, were successfully defeated in 2003 and
2006 thanks to the defiance and solidarity of dockers around the world.
According to the ETF and ITF it now seems that this same legislation is being
forced through on a national basis, but with the same potential wide-ranging
effects on dockers.
 
Chair of the ETF dockers’ section,
Terje Samuelsen, said that: “Portugal can be considered as a laboratory for the
European ports policy. Several measures put forward by the Portuguese government
correspond perfectly to the proposals that can be expected across Europe. We
have seen this before in port packages one and two. We defeated it then and we
will defeat it now”.
 
Marc Loridan, dockers’ leader of the
BTB union, warned the Belgian and Portuguese governments and the European
Commission that dockers around the world “are ready to discuss this but watch
out - if you want a war with the European dockers’ unions, we are ready to
fight”.
 
ITF president and dockers’ section
chair Paddy Crumlin said that this type of deregulation of standards and
employment protection would not be countenanced by the world dockers’ movement.
“In a global industry maintenance of standards and trade union rights is a
global issue, not just a national or regional one,” he stated.
 
For more on the Maritime
Roundtable see at <A
href="redir.aspx?C=b38ad441e2f841bea6a6563b8aef9971&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.dockers-seafarers.org%2fevent%2fmaritime-roundtable"
target=_blank>www.dockers-seafarers.org/event/maritime-roundtable</A> and <A
href="redir.aspx?C=b38ad441e2f841bea6a6563b8aef9971&URL=http%3a%2f%2fwww.itfglobal.org%2fpress-area%2findex.cfm%2fpressdetail%2f7913"
target=_blank>http://www.itfglobal.org/press-area/index.cfm/pressdetail/7913</A>

 
 </DIV></BODY></HTML>