The Port of Marseilles is considering acquiring a minority stake in a private container terminal in a bid to end a long-running dispute with dockers over labor reforms. The port authority said it offered to buy a 30 to 35 percent stake in Intramar to ease dockers’ concerns over their transfer from its payroll to the private stevedore as part of government plans to boost French ports’ sagging productivity.
The move comes a week after some 40 hooded men armed with axes and iron bars ransacked the office of port director Jean-Claude Terrier. Dockers have also walked off the job several times in recent months to protest plans to transfer container crane operators and maintenance staff to Intramar.
Intramar is unit of Portsynergy, a joint venture between Marseilles-based ocean carrier CMA CGM and Dubai’s DP World, a global container terminal operator.
Unions fear jobs are at risk because traffic at Intramar’s facility in the port’s eastern docks has declined sharply this year, while volumes have risen at the nearby Fos deep-water terminal. Terrier said a port authority stake in Intramar, coupled with a say in its strategy, would resolve the dispute and guarantee ocean carriers access to a multiuser terminal.
Dockers at Marseilles and six other state-controlled French ports, including top box hub Le Havre, staged four months of rolling strikes last year to protest plans to privatize container handling. Unions called off their action after the government refused to back down and Parliament voted for the reforms.
The port authority said it does not anticipate problems over the transfer of workers to private stevedores Eurofos and Seayard at the Fos container terminal.
The move comes a week after some 40 hooded men armed with axes and iron bars ransacked the office of port director Jean-Claude Terrier. Dockers have also walked off the job several times in recent months to protest plans to transfer container crane operators and maintenance staff to Intramar.
Intramar is unit of Portsynergy, a joint venture between Marseilles-based ocean carrier CMA CGM and Dubai’s DP World, a global container terminal operator.
Unions fear jobs are at risk because traffic at Intramar’s facility in the port’s eastern docks has declined sharply this year, while volumes have risen at the nearby Fos deep-water terminal. Terrier said a port authority stake in Intramar, coupled with a say in its strategy, would resolve the dispute and guarantee ocean carriers access to a multiuser terminal.
Dockers at Marseilles and six other state-controlled French ports, including top box hub Le Havre, staged four months of rolling strikes last year to protest plans to privatize container handling. Unions called off their action after the government refused to back down and Parliament voted for the reforms.
The port authority said it does not anticipate problems over the transfer of workers to private stevedores Eurofos and Seayard at the Fos container terminal.