Le Havre © Stefan Rotter
By Stuart Todd
Docker and port worker unions at France’s biggest container port, Le Havre, have begun a programme of intermittent industrial action set to take place over the next month in protest at state pension reform – and the dispute could spread to other French ports.
Workers at the Normandy gateway will stage four-hour walkouts on 13 specific days, from the first, yesterday, to 28 February, as well as a series of 48-hour strikes.
The walkouts are planned for 27, 29, 30, and 31 January and 4, 6, 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 24, 26, and 28 February.
Evidence that the labour unrest is likely to spread came yesterday when around 80 workers at the port of Calais stopped work between midday and 4pm, preventing passengers and freight getting on ferries. P&O and DFDS cancelled several crossings.
The dispute over raising the statutory retirement age in France dates back more than a year and culminated last June in a 24-hour stoppage, led by the militant CGT union federation. It reportedly blocked Le Havre’s ro-ro, bulk and container terminals, resulting in the cancellation of ship calls and significant delays to vessel schedules. At France’s second biggest box port, Marseille-Fos, an estimated 600 dockers and other workers blocked the main entry point.
Att the time, trade bodies representing hauliers and logistics providers cited delays of up to a week in obtaining bookings at Marseille and Le Havre terminals, as well as incurring extra costs due to the immobilisation of goods and diversion of logistics flows to other European ports.
The unions were then poised to continue their protests, only to see them shelved as a result of political upheaval which last summer saw President Macron dissolve Parliament and call a snap election.
Two ‘new’ governments later, they are ready again to further their demands through strikes and stoppages.