Striking French dockers re-open ports, while planning fresh strikes

THE French dockers union, Confederation Generale du Travail (CGT), ended one strike and started planning the next after the government refused to accept its proposals for retirement pensions for 5,000-6,000 longshoremen who have reached the age of 58.


Dock unions are planning more four-day strikes, which have crippled cargo movement at Marseilles and Le Havre, France's biggest container ports.


It is becoming harder for the government to resist as port employers now back union demands for early retirement, for those workers the union says have arduous jobs. That would be four to five years before the legal minimum age, under French law.


The unions, often communist-led or with significant communist influence, have formed the International Dock Workers Council, an association of waterfront unions in different countries, which now call on member ports' dockers to boycott cargo diverted from strike-prone French ports.


Container carriers have been diverting containerships to Rotterdam, Antwerp and Zeebrugge to avoid Le Havre, and to Barcelona and Genoa to avoid Marseilles-Fos, reports Newark's Journal of Commerce.


Port employers and the union reached an agreement on retirement, but the government raised the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62 and the threshold for full benefits from 65 to 67, and insists any deal with the dockworkers must comply with the new rules, reports Newark's Journal of Commerce.


Port employers offer to partly pay pensions at 58 for some, but the scheme still needs tax dollars. Other private sector concerns, like car manufacturers, are fully funding early their retirement schemes.
(Source:http://www.schednet.com)