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WORKERS
at France’s seven biggest ports went on strike Wednesday
to protest a government plan to sell dock-equipment
management to private companies and take staff off
public payrolls.
The Fos
and Lavera terminals at the Marseille port, France’s
biggest, shut down, leaving 67 vessels including 39
tankers stranded at the harbor’s entrance, said Claire
Battedou, a spokeswoman for the port authority.
“Numerous” ships are blocked at France’s largest
container port, Le Havre, a union representative said.
The strikes come as the ports plan was presented at the
French Cabinet ministers’ meeting.
Cranes operate at the main
port in Marseille, France, in a file photo. Workers at
France’s seven biggest ports started a general strike
Wednesday to protest a government plan to sell
dock-equipment management to private companies and take
staff off public payrolls. -- Bloomberg
President Nicolas Sarkozy says he wants to make ports
more competitive after government statistics showed
their share of container traffic dropped by 50 percent
between 1989 and 2006.
“Our
ports lack efficiency,” said Luc Chatel, a government
spokesman. “We are the country with the biggest
shoreline in
Europe. Business growth is very small and we’re losing market
shares.’’
Chatel
said French ports’ market share has shrunk to 13 percent
from 20 percent in the late 1980s.
Government officials, port managers and union
representatives said they haven’t tallied the costs of
the strike.
A 17-day
walkout last year in Marseille alone cost Manutention
Generale Mediterraneenne, the port’s biggest
cargo-handler, $2.4 million.
‘Serious
consequences’
THE
ports plan, to be submitted to Parliament before the
summer, may threaten jobs, union officials say. They
said there will be “serious economic consequences” and
“paralysis” if the government doesn’t back down.
In 1992
Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT), the largest
labor union at French ports, shut down operations for
170 days to protest against a law that moved dock
workers to nonstate companies.
Port
workers pledged to intensify disruptions after today’s
one-day walkout. The CGT called for strikes three nights
a week and an end to overtime work.
Ports
will be blocked during the nights of April 24 and 25, it
said. Le Havre will be closed for 24 hours starting
midday on May 26.
“We will
increase our protests until we see positive changes in
the government’s plan,” said Brice Triboulet, a union
representative for CGT in Le Havre.
The CGT
said in an April 17 letter to Sarkozy that there was “no
real economic and financial necessity” for the new plan.
The government disagrees.
Low
productivity
FRENCH
ports “have enormous potential, and single-digit growth
or no growth in the case of Marseille,” said Transport
Minister Dominique Bussereau. “Everywhere else, in the
Netherlands,
Belgium, Spain, it’s exploding.’’
France’s
seven biggest ports handled 304 million tons of cargo
last year, compared with about 400 million tons by
Rotterdam alone.
At the
Mediterranean
port of
Marseille,
cargo is unloaded between three and seven times more
slowly than at other terminals.
Container vessels docking in
Shanghai,
the world’s largest port, are unloaded at the rate of
150 movements an hour compared with between 20 and 50 in
Marseille, according to Marseille’s Chamber of Commerce.
At the
heart of the current battle is what freight forwarders,
refiners and ship owners say is an archaic system under
which cargo handlers are private, while port equipment
is managed by state-owned entities.
Cargo
companies that employ dock workers to load and unload
vessels have to use port employees to operate cranes.
The
government said that under the plan, it will invest €445
million between now and 2012 to modernize port
infrastructure.
The plan
will also transfer crane workers and other
administrative employees to private companies.
The
change of status applies to more than 2,000 workers,
which CGT says is the most contentious part of the plan.
(Bloomberg) |
