The French southern port of Marseille was back in business after an 18-day-strike ended with an agreement meeting union demands.
Workers at Europe's second largest oil terminal after Rotterdam on Saturday endorsed a deal ending a dispute over the hiring of workers at a new terminal run by the state-controlled French gas utility GDF.
GDF has long argued that for security reasons it would hire only its personnel but on Friday, it offered five jobs for the dock workers at its future terminal.
Sources close to the negotiations said the climbdown for GDF came after the French government intervened to appeal for an end to the strike that threatened to choke off fuel supplies, just three weeks before the first round of voting in the presidential election.
Port authorities said yesterday that it would take another 10 to 15 days for operations to return to normal. About 60 ships remained blocked outside the port when work resumed on Saturday but an official was unable to say yesterday how many ships had been loaded.
CGT union official Pascal Galeote said more meetings would take place in the coming days to finetune the deal that ended the longest strike in 15 years at the Marseille port.
Dockers went on strike on March 14 to demand that GDF hire port workers from the region to man the new GDF 2 terminal at Fos-sur-Mer due to come online in 2008. The Marseille port employs some 1,500 workers.
The French Union of Petroleum Industries had said that the hold-up at the port was costing tanker operators between 15,000 euros and 50,000 euros (S$30,447 and S$101,492) a day.
Workers at Europe's second largest oil terminal after Rotterdam on Saturday endorsed a deal ending a dispute over the hiring of workers at a new terminal run by the state-controlled French gas utility GDF.
GDF has long argued that for security reasons it would hire only its personnel but on Friday, it offered five jobs for the dock workers at its future terminal.
Sources close to the negotiations said the climbdown for GDF came after the French government intervened to appeal for an end to the strike that threatened to choke off fuel supplies, just three weeks before the first round of voting in the presidential election.
Port authorities said yesterday that it would take another 10 to 15 days for operations to return to normal. About 60 ships remained blocked outside the port when work resumed on Saturday but an official was unable to say yesterday how many ships had been loaded.
CGT union official Pascal Galeote said more meetings would take place in the coming days to finetune the deal that ended the longest strike in 15 years at the Marseille port.
Dockers went on strike on March 14 to demand that GDF hire port workers from the region to man the new GDF 2 terminal at Fos-sur-Mer due to come online in 2008. The Marseille port employs some 1,500 workers.
The French Union of Petroleum Industries had said that the hold-up at the port was costing tanker operators between 15,000 euros and 50,000 euros (S$30,447 and S$101,492) a day.