Breaking news! Dockers strike
18/07/2017
The constitution of the IV-ASE Negotiation Committee has been approved. There will be 15 Anesco members on it, on the employers’ side, and also 15 union members on behalf of the workers. The negotiations will be held in July and September; dates yet to be confirmed.
29/06/2017
Dockers will stop the strikes because they have reached an agreement with the management that guarantees the subrogation of employment, its main request since the beginning of the conflict. Both are committed to the negotiation of the Fifth Framework Agreement.
28/06/2017
The coordinator and Anesco will restart the negotiations tomorrow, on June 29th, a day in which, although there will not be a continuous strike, there will be a strike from 13.00 to 14.00 and from 19.00 to 20.00 to back up the European call made by the IDC in support of European dockers and in rejection of the ultra-liberal model of the European Union.
Following the meeting, the unions will decide whether or not to maintain the schedule of strikes planned between June 30th and July 8th.
23/06/2017
Dockers have canceled the strikes planned for June 23rd, 26th and 27th in all Spanish harbours as a sign of their willingness and predisposition to a real negotiation.
Javier Vidal, president of the Asociación de Empresas de Estiba Portuaria de Barcelona, has asked trade unions for a few days to meet with Anesco, very divided after the bilateral agreements. Dockers are confident that this meeting will ratify the agreements already reached and will open the way for the negotiation of a new collective agreement.
21/06/2017
Trade unions have signed the first pre-agreements with the harbours of Valencia, Barcelona and Algeciras, which are gradually returning to normal.
The harbors of the Canary Islands, Balearic Islands, Castellón, Seville and Gijón also agree and avoid the strike.
Dockers have rejected Anesco’s proposal and are starting individual negotiations with the harbours. They assure there will be no strike in the harbours that guarantee the totality of employment continuously.
20/06/2017
Anesco suggests a new negotiations’ schedule to dockers as long as they call off the announced stoppages and commit not to issue new notices during the negotiations. If they accept it, the rounds of dialogue will begin tomorrow (June 21st).
16/06/2017
Dockers issue a new notice of strike at odd hours for periods of 48 hours as follows:
- From 08.00 on June 26th to 08.00 on June 28th.
- From 08.00 on June 29th to 08.00 on July 1st.
- From 08.00 on July 3rd to 08.00 on July 5th.
- From 08.00 on July 6th to 08.00 on July 8th.
02/06/2017
Dockers call for 5 more days of strike action in June. They announce an uninterrupted stoppage of 48 hours from 08:00 on Wednesday 14th to 08:00 on Friday 16th, and also regular stoppages during odd hours on June 19th, 21st and 23rd.
01/06/2017
Spanish dockers will support the planned strike on 5th, 7th and 9th June. Negotiations with the employers were broken because they did not guarantee the subrogation of employment at 100%. Companies have announced that they will analyze the continuity of employment in every harbour and the conditions in which it is carried out. Dockers are not willing to accept this measure and do not dismiss calling for new work stoppages.
18/05/2017
The Congress of Deputies has approved the Royal Decree Law regarding the stowage reform that regulates the industry and adapts it to European regulations. The Minister of Development will report today the approval of the law to the European Commission in order to avoid a second fine. He also guarantees that subjects about working conditions will be arranged in an independent royal decree that will be based on the royal decree law and will be drawn from the proposal drafted by the mediator, Marcos Peña.
On their behalf, dockers will hold the strike, but they are willing to negotiate once again with the employers to try to find a solution. Antolín Goya, leader of the Coordinadora Estatal de Trabajadores del Mar, has stated that the agreement will depend not only on the trade unions but also on the interests of the employers and the round table with companies, since their objective remains the same: to guarantee the employment.
16/05/2017
Dockers have issued a new notice of 8-day strike between May 24 and June 9 after the approval of the new Royal Decree-Law regarding the stevedoring reform by the Council of Ministers. They claim to be deceived by the Government, which has approved the royal decree without consensus of the parties. Unless their requests included in the notice are accepted, they will go on strike on May 24, 26, 29 and 31 and June 2, 7 and 9. The coordinator has issued a press release stressing that the new decree does not ensure the employment of stevedores, which is their main requirement.
03/03/2017
Please be aware that, National Dockers Union have announced strikes in all Spanish ports during 3 weeks as from week 10 (from 06 to 24 of March). During this time operations will only be performed on alternative hours and days.
Even before the start of these strike actions, we are facing already severe slowdowns and operational issues forcing some shipping lines to omit some Spanish port calls.