Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg conducted negotiations on new Collective contract

OJSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” (SP SPb) conducted negotiations between the employer and employees in relation to approval of Collective contract for 2016-2018 which started in September of this year, the Company’s press center says. On behalf of the employees came out the united representative body which included three port trade unions: primary trade union organization of Russian trade union of dock workers, primary trade union organization “Portovik” and primary trade union organization of port workers of the Greater Port of Saint-Petersburg. Negotiations were conducted according to all the procedures set by Russian legislation. 

New document preserves social guarantees and compensations which have been in force for many years and were set in Collective Contracts of the First, Second and Third Stevedoring companies and after their joining to SP SPb in 2011 in various local regulatory acts of the company. Hence the above-mentioned contract formalizes relations between the employer and employees in relation to additional privileges provided in accordance with laws of RF.

Besides, now Collective contract regulates all personnel of SP SPb and not only separate categories of employees as it was before. 

According to conditions of the new contract SP SPb accepted a number of obligations for employees including provision of additional days of vacation for multiple shifts, irregular working hours and having many children; guaranteed payments to veterans when they retire and other benefits. 

One of ways to provide financial assistance to employees in Collective contract is arranging of Target Fund from company’s funds aimed to render targeted support to port workers. The employees preserve all additional benefits related to reimbursement of expenses for medical services, vacation of the employees and their children, sport activities. The company will still help its employees who turned to be in hard life situations, veterans, families with many children and incomplete families. Starting from the beginning of 2015 expenses of SP SPb for welfare assistance have increased by 20% in comparison with the same period of the last year, expenses for vacation of children of the port workers have increased by 35%, expenses for health resort treatment have increased twofold. Expenditure control is performed by the committee which includes the representatives of the employer and trade unions.  

Due to changes in legislation in relation to the procedure of evaluation of working places in 2016  SP SPb  starts to carry out several events related to special evaluation of working conditions. Due to this fact sections of Collective contract setting the procedure on provision of guarantees and compensations for work in hazardous conditions were not included in this version of the document. However, at the present time all the workers of SP SPb preserve their guarantees and compensations “for hazardous conditions” which were approved earlier and specified in local regulatory acts. 

Local regulatory acts regulate also new payment system for dock workers which was introduced by the company in 2014 in order to secure high profits of the employees and which was accepted by the workers. As the result within 9 months of 2015 the salary of the dock workers increased by 26% up to 79 119 Rubles in comparison with the same period of 2014 and performance grew by 19%. And the employer still continues to pay long-service awards to the dock workers who received such payment earlier. The respective clause in included in supplementary agreements to their labour contracts which at the present time are signed by the employees. Besides, in 2013 by order of the Managing Director of SP SPb provision “On Increase of Level of Salary of the Employees” was introduced. This provision envisages monthly payment of index wage premium. Since July of 2015 it amounts to 3 711 Rubles per month. 

So new Collective contract specifies principles of social partnership of the employer, trade unions and employees. Main goal of it is ensuring efficient work of the company together with creation of the most favorable conditions for each employee.

OJSC “Sea Port of Saint-Petersburg” (included in UCL Port – stevedoring division of the International transportation group UCL Holding) – is the largest operator, rendering services on handling of all types of dry cargoes in the Greater Port of Saint-Petersburg.  It operates by modern multipurpose specialized terminals for handling of general and bulk cargoes and specialized terminals for ro-ro cargoes. In 2014 the turnover of the company amounted to 8.1 mln tons.