Euro campaign against port services liberalisation

The General Workers' Union is circulating a petition against the liberalisation of port services.

The petition will be presented to the European parliament along with other petitions being raised all over Europe.

The petition, part of a campaign organised by the European Transport Federation, will urge members of the European parliament to reject a proposal for a directive on market access to port services.

The petition will also be presented to the government.

Addressing a press conference, GWU maritime and aviation section secretary Emanuel Zammit said the issue was not about the liberalisation of the port services but about "a few capitalists dominating the market".

He denied that the proposed directive would be beneficial to Maltese consumers.

The petition argues against any legislation which permits self-handling by seafarers; that there should be a guarantee of safety standards; that these standards can only be achieved by employing qualified dockers and that the pilotage services should be kept free from commercial competition.

"The European dockers will not allow their jobs and their working conditions to be jeopardised by unqualified workers who are not covered by a collective agreement," Mr Zammit said.

He said it was still unclear whether the vote on the proposed directive will be taken during the European parliament's plenary session scheduled for next week or in early December.

Maltese port workers, he said, would join their European counterparts in protests by taking "actions in the port" around the time when the vote is taken.

He could not elaborate on what kind of actions the union was planning. However, he said nothing was being excluded at this stage.

Representatives of the European parliament and the European Council found a surprisingly fast compromise on the hotly debated directive but final approval by the parliament's plenary session is still uncertain.

The agreement was reached by the Conciliation Committee between the parliament and the council in September against a background of massive protests by dockers from several member states.

Over the past year, thousands of port workers, including Maltese port workers represented by the GWU, have demonstrated against the plan to liberalise port services such as cargo handling and mooring.

Among the main elements of the conciliation agreement is that "self-handling" (loading and unloading of ships by port users' own staff instead of regular dockers) will be allowed but will be limited to sea-faring personnel (not land-based staff).

Member states may require special prior authorisation for self-handling, and "pilotage" will fall under the directive (contrary to the second reading in parliament).

Member states may demand that the competent authority require providers of port services operations to obtain prior authorisation and there will be more financial transparency on the public funding of ports.

As the parliament delegation was split on the results of the compromise, it might not win a majority of votes in the parliament's plenary session.