Status: 07/16/2022 08:52 a.m
After a 48-hour standstill in the port of Hamburg and other German ports, several thousand dock workers ended their latest warning strike on Saturday morning. The trade union ver.di had called for the walkout in order to increase the pressure on employers again after seven unsuccessful rounds.
“The warning strike ended today as planned and work is starting again,” said a ver.di spokesman in the morning. There were ten injured in the protest march in the Hanseatic city on Friday after a participant in the rally had ignited a firecracker. On the fringes of the final rally at Besenbinderhof near the main train station, police officers arrested the man who had thrown the firecracker, which escalated the situation. Several dock workers harassed the officials. According to the police, bottles flew out of the crowd of demonstrators. The officers used pepper spray. Five police officers and five demonstrators were injured. Overall, the demonstration was quite peaceful. According to ver.di, around 5,000 people took part in the protest march from the main station via Ballindamm to Jungfernstieg and then to the Besenbinderhof.
Heaviest strike in more than 40 years
The port workers stopped work at the beginning of the early shift on Thursday. The motto of their protest was “Stop the inflation monster!” With the first warning strike in a late shift and a 24-hour warning strike in June, the strike-related loss of work totals around 80 hours. This makes it the longest industrial dispute in the ports for more than 40 years.
No stop to the strikes in court
On Thursday, the employers tried to stop the warning strikes with temporary injunctions at several northern German labor courts. That didn’t work. However, the hearing before the Hamburg Labor Court showed that the court had doubts as to whether all the formalities had been complied with when the workers decided to go on strike. The result: a comparison. After this strike, further labor disputes are excluded until August 26th. In Bremen, Oldenburg and Wilhelmshaven, the strike was confirmed by the competent courts of first instance.
Westhagemann calls for arbitration proceedings
Hamburg’s Economics Senator Michael Westhagemann (independent) has meanwhile called on the union and employers to agree on an arbitration procedure, which ver.di has so far rejected. Westhagemann called the strikes damaging, something that would weaken the competitiveness of Hamburg as a location.
12,000 employees in seaports
Around 12,000 people work in the German seaports – from Hamburg to Bremerhaven and Brake. Here, too, ships have not been dispatched since Thursday morning. Not only the large container terminals were affected, but also stevedores and general cargo handling.
Employers offer 12.5 percent more wages
The reason for the strike is the current collective bargaining dispute. The employers had recently improved their offer again. They offer up to 12.5 percent spread over two years. Ver.di demands at least one inflation adjustment, and that for all employees. The employers had already warned of a further escalation before the strike was announced. Negotiator Ulrike Riedel told NDR 90.3 that with every further strike, more ships would be jammed in front of the ports. “The supply chains are extremely tense,” said Riedel. Christian Baranowski, Chairman of the Works Council at HHLA, explained: “The reason it has come to this is that the employer is no longer willing to work with us socially.” The port workers have given everything in the last two years. “We want to have our share now,” said Baranowski.
AUDIO: Warning strike in port continues with court settlement (2 min)
Ports largely paralyzed
Almost three weeks ago, port workers with the start of the early shift largely paralyzed the handling of container and cargo ships in Germany’s major North Sea ports with a 24-hour warning strike. The ports of Hamburg, Emden, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Brake and Wilhelmshaven were affected. Before that, there were no work stoppages among dockers for many years.
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