The International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) has raised the use of Peruvian Navy troops as strikebreakers in the pay of APM Terminals (APMT) at a meeting of UN body the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva.
Paddy Crumlin, President of the ITF, said: “Things are going from bad to worse, with these threatened sackings and the use of navy sailors as strikebreaking mercenaries. Those kind of tactics would be unthinkable in APMT’s home country of the Netherlands, not to mention Denmark, home of its parent, the Maersk Group.
“The strikebreaking began with seafarers being pressured into loading/unloading – something for which they are dangerously untrained and which is actually illegal under Peruvian law.
“The ITF drew the risks to the attention of ship operators and seafarers and that particular tactic stopped. But it’s now been replaced by the rather shameful hiring of the armed forces to undermine their countrymen’s right to strike. This is what we raised at the Committee on the Application of Standards at the ILO, and we will not rule out formal complaint against the Republic of Peru to the ILO itself.”
He concluded: “We said it at the beginning of this dispute and we’ll say it again: APMT needs to stop creating international incidents and enter sincere negotiations. How much simpler can we make it?”
In other news, Rotterdam World Gateway (RWG) and unions FNV Havens and CNV Vakmensen have reached an operational collective agreement for operational activities, with all parties confident with this new agreement after a year of intensive negotiations.
The operational collective agreement has a period of validity of three-and-a-half years, from July 1, 2015 to December 31, 2018. This concerns an agreement on operational activities at RWG’s terminal.
(Source: APMT)
