Strike at Rotterdam looks set to halt container operations from today
Container operations look likely to be halted at the Port of Rotterdam after workers began a 24-hour stike at 15:15hrs this afternoon over possible job losses.
Workers’ unions FNV Havens and CNV say 3,300 of the port’s 3,600 workers are involved in the action. Five other day-long strikes are being planned, reports say. Oil trade will not be affected.
“We don’t exclude further actions if our demands aren’t met and such action could include a 48-hour strike,” Niek Stam, a spokesman for the FNV union, told a press conference in Rotterdam today.
The unions want port companies to guarantee that there will be no forced redundancies related to terminal automation and overcapacity until at least July 2020, with the possibility of extension. Talks have stalled between the port authority and the two unions.
Two new highly automated container terminals have recently opened on the Tweede Maasvlakte, one of them being APMT’s flagship Maasvlakte II terminal.
Terminal automation is expected to cause the loss of 800 out of 3,500 jobs in container throughput at the port in 2017, unions say.
