Port Strike News

Dock workers at ports along Canada's Pacific coast rejected a tentative four-year wage deal agreed with their employers last week and returned to the picket line, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) said on Tuesday.The ILWU represents some 7,500 dock workers, who walked off the job on July 1 after failing to reach a new work contract with the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA), which represents the companies involved.In a statement released Tuesday afternoon…

The world's biggest fertilizer producer Nutrien Ltd cut production on Tuesday, citing the impact of an 11-day-old strike in Canada's Pacific ports whose cost has now ballooned to an estimated C$5.5 billion ($4.2 billion).Some 7,500 dock workers represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) walked off on July 1 after failing to agree a new wage deal with the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA).The union says the BCMEA is refusing to give a fair pay increase despite making billions of dollars in profits in recent years.

Talks in Pacific Canada between striking dock workers and their employers have resumed after four days away from the negotiation table, a statement on Saturday by the British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) showed.The BCMEA and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union Canada (ILWU Canada) met on Saturday, supported by federal mediators, the statement said. The talks had stalled on Tuesday and the two sides broke off negotiations.Some 7,500 port workers went on strike on July 1 for higher wages…

A Stella Maris chaplain is supporting crew onboard ships berthed at Felixstowe port amid the ongoing dockworkers strike.Julian Wong had gone on board the container vessel George Washington Bridge which arrived in Felixstowe on August 19 before the start of the strike, to meet the crew and left them his contact details in case they needed to get in touch.The ship was scheduled to leave the port on August 20, but its departure was delayed, so the crew had to stay on board. On August 24…

Striking dockworkers at Canada's second-biggest port will gradually return to work on Saturday, the Montreal Port Authority (MPA) said, after the federal government passed a law to end the walkout.Late on Friday, the Canadian government passed back-to-work legislation to halt the strike, which workers at the Port of Montreal began on Monday over changes to their work schedules."Our priority now is to plan for the resumption of port operations and to ensure efficient and seamless service…

Argentina's influential chamber of soyoil manufacturers and exporters on Sunday spiced up an offer to striking workers, seeking to end a more than two-week standoff that has bogged down exports from one of the world's main breadbaskets.The CIARA-CEC chamber said it would top up salaries by 35% in 2020, a central demand of the striking workers, many of whom stayed on the job through the height of the coronavirus pandemic. The group also offered a 70,000 peso (about $840) bonus…

The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (Satawu) said on Wednesday a court interdiction secured by the national ports authority has stopped planned strike action at ports from Thursday."Transnet National Ports Authority has interdicted the strike and the Labour Court has reserved judgment until Sept. 5, meaning we cannot go on strike tomorrow," union spokeswoman Zanele Sabela said.The strike was called after a deadlock over salary discrepancies between white and black workers.Reporting by Wendell Roelf

Sri Lankan customs officers on Tuesday called off a strike that left 6,000 containers stranded at the country's main port and put pressure on food prices, after the government agreed to reinstate their boss for three months.The strike by thousands of officials began a week ago in protest at the sacking of Director General P.S.M. Charles, who authorities blamed for a drop in customs revenue last year.It was not immediately clear how long the backlog of containers would take to clear after unions said late on Tuesday that the strike had ended.About 1…

French oil and gas company Total said on Monday that crude exports from its Djeno terminal in Congo Republic was ongoing and unaffected following a strike last week and the sinking of a loading buoy in an unrelated accident.   Traders said on Friday that the company had declared a force majeure on exports of Djeno crude following the incident.   A spokeswoman for Total said: "exports from Djeno remain unaffected and safely continue with the second available loading buoy," adding that the tanker that was loading at the time of the buoy incident was safely disconnected.   She added that the strike at the terminal ended on Friday, while an investigation into the buoy accident was ongoing. (Reporting by Bate Felix, Julia Payne and Edward McAllister; Editing by Michel Rose)

The Prime Mover-Trailer Owners Workers Unity Council of Chittagong Oikya Parishad has postponed their ongoing strike till October 4 at Chittagong Port. This has ended the deadlock in goods transportation at the sea port for the time being. The strike has created largest ever gridlock of containers in the recent history of Chittagong port. A total of 40,259 TEUs of containers were stockpiled at the port exceeding 36,357 TEUs capacity. The decision was taken on Friday (September 30) morning after the meeting that held with the participation of Workers secretary of the organisation Mohammad Humayun Kabir and Chittagong Metropolitan Police Commissioner Iqbal Bahar.

France's CGT union is calling for a nationwide port strike on June 23 and June 28 as part of ongoing protests against the government's labour reform bill, the union said in a statement on Wednesday.   Port workers have participated in rolling nationwide strikes in recent weeks, notably disrupting activity at the oil terminal in Le Havre, northern France, which handles about 40 percent of French crude imports.   Tuesday saw a latest day of nationwide demonstrations against the labour reform, including protests in Paris marked by violent clashes between police and youths.   (Reporting by Valerie Parent, writing by Gus Trompiz)

The buy-out of the Greece's Piraeus Port by Chinese shipping giant COSCO is closer to completion, as shareholders approved a new concession agreement, reports Reuters. Greece had already agreed in April to sell a 67 percent stake in Piraeus to COSCO for $415.7 million. Now that shareholders have signed off on the deal, it heads to parliament and competition authorities for approval. The sale of Piraeus and the country’s second state-owned seaport, Thessaloniki, have been key conditions for Greece to be able to unlock the next tranche of its 10.3 billion euro aid package from the European Stability Mechanism rescue fund. Last week, Piraeus Port shareholders met at an Athens hotel to clear the concession agreement…

Piraeus Port shareholders approved a new concession agreement with Chinese shipping giant COSCO on Friday, bringing Greece a step closer to concluding the sale of a majority stake in the port. Greece agreed in April to sell a 67 percent stake in the port to COSCO for 368.5 million euros. With the concession agreement approved, the deal now needs the green light from parliament and the competition watchdog to go through. Privatisations have been significant elements in Greece's succession of bailouts since 2010 but have reaped poor revenues due to political resistance, union protests and bureaucracy. Under its third international bailout, Athens also plans to sell a majority stake in its second largest port in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki later this year.

A strike by French ferry workers is causing travel chaos in the south of England and Eurostar services from London are experiencing long delays. Calais strike is over - but motorists still face lengthy delays. Sailings have been resumed following the protests and the Channel Tunnel has reopened after protesting French ferry workers got on to the tracks. All services to and from the UK Port of Dover have been affected by the strike. Workers at MyFerryLink have voted in favour of ending the industrial action and return to work after blockading the Port of Calais, as well as having Eurotunnel services suspended. Traffic jams are mounting on motorway stretches near Dover as lorries destined for Calais wait until service resumes.

A customs strike in Chile that began last week has started to affect exports and imports, although miners in the top copper producer said this week they have not yet been significantly impacted. The strike by customs officials, who say they want the government to approximately double their workforce, began on May 20, and the union says it will continue indefinitely until an agreement is reached. It rejected a government proposal for a smaller increase in the workforce at the weekend. "We have had dialogue but it has been tense ... what we want is a signal that this will be resolved in the short term but that hasn't arrived," Jorge Thibaut, secretary general of the national association of customs workers (ANFACH) said to journalists on Wednesday.

Argentina's main grains port of Rosario was paralyzed at midday on Wednesday by an open-ended wage strike by boat captains needed to help dock incoming cargo ships, the country's port management chamber said. At a busy time of the year for exporters, smack in the middle of Southern Hemisphere soy and corn harvest season, the country's dock workers also threatened a work stoppage if their own pay demands are not met. The strikes threaten to slow supply from grains powerhouse Argentina, putting upward pressure on world food prices. The country is the world's top exporter of soymeal livestock feed, its No. 3 supplier of raw soybeans and a major producer of corn and wheat.

National Retail System (NRS) one of the leading 3PL logistics providers in North America has released the results of its survey on how a West Coast ports strike could impact logistics in the USA. With a strike looming as the holiday season gets nearer, the NRS' survey found that only 52% of the companies who responded are prepared. Although about 20% of those surveyed didn't know, or didn't want to disclose their potential losses in the case of a strike, the information from the remainder was quite stark. A week-long strike will not be too painful for most with 70% (of those that expressed a value) having losses of less than $250k, although 5% of the businesses will lose over $1 million with only a week long strike.

Brazil's National Federation of Stevedores, known as FNE, on Wednesday scrapped a plan for a nationwide strike over hiring and pension practices in peak soy exporting season. "We have suspended the strike in order to give the government more time" to make an offer, FNE President Wilton Barreto told Reuters by phone from Brasilia. He said the union had not decided on a date to reconsider a strike. Stevedores walked off the job on several occasions last year to protest a law Congress passed that allows the sale of port terminals to private companies because they feared union jobs could be jeopardized.

Teekay Shipping took part in Australian government-sponsored mediation talks on Tuesday to avert industrial action by tugboat operators that could halt a quarter of global seaborne iron ore exports. There were no immediate comments on any outcome from the talks. BHP Billiton has previously warned that a strike by tugboat operators at Port Hedland on the Indian Ocean could cost up to $100 million in lost revenue each day. Deckhands, engineers and masters of the tugboats that guide vessels in and out of the port are pressing operator Teekay Shipping for more pay and leave. Deckhands, represented by the Maritime Union of Australia, last week approved plans to strike for one, two or seven days but have yet to decide whether to stop work. Any strike by them would have to take place by June 11.

Tugboat workers at Australia's biggest iron ore port have approved a plan to go on strike, which would halt a quarter of the world's iron ore exports, if they are unable to resolve a dispute over leave and pay, their union said on Monday. Deckhands in the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) voted to strike for one, two or seven days, but remain in talks with tugboat operator Teekay Shipping Australia to resolve the dispute, the union said. No date or timeframe has been set for a strike, which would halt iron ore shipments by BHP Billiton and Fortescue Metals Group. Together they supply more than half of Australia's iron ore exports. "Industrial…

Reuters - Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Wednesday it was "not acceptable" for striking truck drivers to block shipments at Canada's largest port in Vancouver and that Ottawa was concerned about the labor dispute. "It is not acceptable to have relatively small numbers of people blocking what is important trade for a range of British Columbian and Canadian businesses," Harper told a business audience in Vancouver when asked about the truck driver strike. Unionized container truck drivers set up picket lines at the Vancouver port on Monday, joining hundreds of nonunion workers who walked off the job last month in a dispute over pay and services.

Unionized container truck drivers set up picket lines at Canada's largest port on Monday, joining hundreds of non-unionized workers who walked off the job last month in a dispute over pay and services. They will now join a nearly two-week long strike by non-unionized drivers, which has already crippled operations at the busy port, hitting the export of commodities like lumber and specialized grain products, and the import of consumer goods. "The impact of truckers walking off the job is in the order of about C$885 million ($796.9 million) per week…

Unionized container truck drivers at Canada's largest port voted on Saturday to join a strike by their non-unionized colleagues, who walked off the job on Wednesday over a long-running dispute about pay and services. Unifor, which represents about 400 container truck drivers at Port Metro Vancouver, said its drivers voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining the four-day-old work action. The unionized workers must give 72-hour notice before walking off the job. Both groups are demanding that the port streamline operations to improve wait times or pay drivers a fair hourly wage while waiting. They are also asking for better, standardized pay rates to discourage under-cutting.