An eight-day strike at Felixstowe, Britain's biggest container port, is due to end at 11pm on Sunday but dockers have been told not to come to work until Tuesday.
That means dockers will lose the chance to work overtime on Bank holiday Monday.
Bank Holiday would normally be allowed to work overtime at the port on a public holiday, but as part of its increasingly bitter dispute with Unite, the trade union, the port authority has refused to allow it to work on ships that are already at the dock or likely to arrive next Monday morning.
These ships include the 2M Alliance's Evelyn Maersk with a capacity of 17,816 Teu deployed on the AE7/Condor route, The Evelyn Maersk was loaded with UK-bound cargo unloaded at Le Havre by the 19,224 Teu MSC Sveva deployed on the AE6/Lion route.
Shippers carrying cargo on MSC Sveva were pleasantly surprised by the speed of transit action, as many feared their containers would run aground.
"When we heard that The ship was unloading our containers in Le Havre, we were worried that they might get stuck there for weeks as has happened in other ports in The past," a Felixstow-based freight forwarder told The Loadstar.
But unless the port of Felixstowe changes overtime rates and is likely to see some 2,500 boxes unloaded, he will have to wait another 24 hours for his containers to be released.
However, the onshore congestion that plagued Felixstowe for months during peak demand has eased considerably, and shipping availability is good, so his customers should be able to get their products in a reasonably timely manner once the ship is unloaded and customs cleared.
Meanwhile, Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, recently visited the picket line at Gate 1 of Felixstowe Pier to drum up support for the stoppage in the middle of the strike.
As the dispute between the union and the port increased significantly, Graham accused port owner Hutchison Whampoa of promoting "wealth for shareholders and pay cuts for workers" and threatened strike action at the port that could last until Christmas.
In response, the port hit back, accusing the union of being undemocratic and "pushing the national agenda at the expense of many of our employees."
The general feeling among The Loadstar's contacts in Felixstowe was that The dockers were being used as "pawns" in The spat between The two sides, with some saying port chief executive Clemence Cheng and his executive team should resolve The dispute.
Meanwhile, a long-running wage dispute between 12,000 members of VER.di, Germany's largest service trade union, and the Central Association of German Seaport Companies (ZDS), the port employer, was resolved yesterday with an agreement to raise wages: A 9.4 per cent pay rise for the container sector from July 1 and a further 4.4 per cent from June 1 next year
In addition, the terms in Ver.di's agreement with ZDS provide an inflation clause that "compensates for price increases of up to 5.5 per cent" if inflation climbs above two pay rises.
Post time: Aug-29-2022