Docker and port worker unions at France’s major ports have begun a programme of industrial action which began last month and is set to continue intermittently throughout February in protest to state pension reform. Among the ports affected are Le Havre and Marseille, the country’s two biggest maritime gateways for container traffic which also serve as hubs for a number of rail freight services.
Dockers and port workers led by the militant CGT union staged a 48-hour national strike on 30 and 31 January which was preceded by four-hour walkouts on 27 and 29 January. Walkouts are also planned for 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 24, 26, and 28 February.
The impact to date of the industrial action is sketchy but a senior freight transport source told RailFreight.com that a 48-hour strike would more often than not lead to the disruption of schedules of containers leaving ports by rail and road,increasing the risk of traffic congestion building up. If this length of stoppage is repeated, ships could be diverted to other ports in northern Europe, resulting in less business for French ports and freight operators.
As for the four-hour walkouts, these are unlikely to affect the arrival and departure of ships, the source added. According to a union source at the Port of Marseille, the 48-hour strike at the end of last week had been “very well supported at the port”, where “all sectors of activity were at a standstill”. Some disruption to certain services was also reported at the Port of Dunkirk but container activity was functioning normally.
Fears of turnover drop
French freight industry bodies are certainly not taking the stoppages in French ports lightly. The shippers association AUTF has warned of a threat of “serious operational and financial consequences” and of “disruption to freight flows and business activity coming to a halt.”
Highlighting the financial consequences of the industrial action, AUTF said this was invariably reflected in the costs of demurrage, detention, parking, waiting for containers to be dropped off or picked up, overflow storage outside the port area for export, diversion of flows to other ports, and ancillary costs “that are unduly and systematically charged to shippers without justification. Shippers no longer want to pay them.”
Meanwhile, TLF, France’s leading federation representing the freight transport and logistics sector, said that a flash survey it conducted of its members based at French ports revealed that the labour unrest was having a “direct economic impact”, with an estimated 21 per cent loss of turnover in January in an already difficult market. A 25 per cent drop in turnover is feared in February, TLF added.