The International Dockworkers Council (IDC) has called a 3-hour stoppage in all European ports as a protest against the Directive which aims to deregulate the sector and place it in the hands of the large shipping companies. The workers are demanding that the future Directive respects their work and shuts the door on “self-handling”, a practice that would allow the companies to establish working conditions and dispense with professional dockworkers.
The IDC, which represents over 50, 000 dockworkers around the world, has members in ten different European countries, and its call could affect 70 ports in Greece, Cyprus, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, Slovenia and Portugal. As a result, all the seas surrounding Europe would be the setting for a shared struggle.
In fact, demonstrations by dockworkers are nothing new in Europe. During the mandate of the previous EU Transport Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, attempts were made to impose a European Directive that was extremely damaging to workers’ interests. At that time, thousands of dockworkers demonstrated in the streets and on the docks, in what became one of Europe’s most impressive demonstrations of trade union unity. That Directive was defeated in the European Parliament in November 2003. However, a few days before her resignation, Loyola de Palacio again promoted a “new” Directive which repeated practically the same errors as the previous one: a lack of dialogue with trade unions and an obvious desire to dismiss professional dockworkers from their jobs. Jacques Barrot, the new Transport Commissioner, received a poisoned chalice from his predecessor in the post.
The stoppage on 14 June, which will last 3 hours, is one of the measures that the workers have prepared against a European Directive that is being prepared without considering their interests. The IDC has declared its firm opposition to this process as a result. In fact, on 14 June, a delegation of trade unionists from the IDC doors will gather outside the European Parliament in Brussels to raise awareness of the workers’ discontent with this process.
