WARNING STRIKE

Last Thursday evening, the dock workers in Bremen and Hamburg, among others, laid down their work for a few hours to reinforce wage negotiations in the German seaports. The result: traffic jams in Germany, and therefore also in Antwerp and Rotterdam.

It was the first time in decades that German seaport workers went on strike, the German trade magazine DVZ notes. The handling of ships in Hamburg, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Wilhelmshaven and Emden was stopped for a few hours, which only made the delay at the quays more longer.

The ‘warning strike’ preceded the third round of negotiations on Friday between the Verdi union and the Association of German Seaport Companies (ZDS). The collective labour agreement applies to approximately 12,000 dock workers in Germany. The third round came to nothing. Where ZDS offers a wage increase of 90 cents per hour plus some allowances, Verdi demands at least 1.20 euros per hour to compensate for inflation and to achieve ‘real wage security’.

Fleetom, the online vessel tracking portal, clearly showed the traffic jam of container ships in Germany as a result of the strike. Because ships moved to Rotterdam and Antwerp, it was also busier there.

The parties agreed on Friday to discuss further. A new date has yet to be set. No new strikes have yet been announced.