Port employees’ unions in India agreed to a
new five-year wage deal with government officials, averting a planned
nationwide strike scheduled to start Wednesday, Bloomberg’s Rajesh Kumar Singh and Weilun
Soon report.
The new deal halts a walkout that could have involved nearly
20,000 workers and brought widespread disruption to cargo operations at some of
the nation’s busiest ports.
Unions at India’s 12 major state-run ports have been
negotiating with the government since 2021 to try to increase pay.
Under the newly agreed terms, unions accepted an 8.5% wage
increase over five years, backdated to January 01, 2022, said Narendra Rao, a working
committee member of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions.
P.M. Mohammed Haneef, president at All India Port and Dock
Workers’ Federation, said management has agreed to conclude the proceedings of
the wage negotiations panel within 15 days.
Earlier this year, labor disruptions at Germany’s biggest
ports threatened to worsen shipping delays, and a French union
called a series of strikes to protest government pension reforms,
potentially slowing grain export terminals.
In March, Finland’s ports and rail networks faced
strikes over labor market reforms.
The following month, port workers in Chile staged
protests that disrupted the loading and unloading of ships in one of the biggest
exporters of raw materials from copper and lithium to pulp and
fruit.
Perhaps the biggest potential problem with maritime labor
is unfolding in the United States, where talks between East and Gulf
Coast dockworkers and their employers are at a stalemate, a little over a month
before the current contract expires September 30, 2024.
