Workers at Europe’s two biggest seaports have temporarily suspended their labor action as more vessels pile up near the oft-congested gateways.
On Monday morning, dockworkers at The Netherlands’ Port of Rotterdam put a stop to their strike following a court ruling.
That strike was expected to last just 48 hours after it began Oct. 8, but was extended over the weekend on Friday after no agreement was reached on a proposed 6.5 percent wage increase.
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The court delivered the back-to-work order Saturday after multiple business associations and the Port of Rotterdam Authority jointly requested an injunction of the strike. The Dutch Federation of Trade Unions (FNV) and the dockworkers’ employers, International Lashing Services and Matrans Marine Services, agreed to meet Sunday.
The strikes will be permitted to resume Friday morning if no settlement is reached between the FNV and the employers.
In total, roughly 700 lashers responsible for securing and fastening cargo on ships walked off the job.
As of Tuesday, there were 30 container ships waiting in the queue, more than doubling from the 13 reported by the port Thursday. Fifteen of these were deep-sea vessels.
According to the EeSea liner database, 37 percent of box ships at Rotterdam are waiting to be berthed, up from 33.5 percent last week.
Due to the strike, container ships could not be handled, secured or unsecured at the port’s terminals, putting seaside operations at a standstill.
Without any further interruptions, the Port of Rotterdam Authority expects backlogs will not be fully cleared out until the end of October.
Although land operations continued as normal, so containers unloaded ahead of the stoppage could move via road, rail or inland waterway, there are fewer containers are being shipped because of the seaside backlogs.
The Port of Rotterdam’s labor disputes have been compounded by a wider nationwide strike for public transportation and logistics workers in neighboring Belgium, which hosts its sister gateway, the Port of Antwerp-Bruges, and the Port of Zebrugge.
Since Oct. 6, nearly 300 maritime harbor pilots already had conducted “work-to-rule” action by operating strictly under office hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., rather than their usual 24/7 rotating shifts. The pilots’ job action was in protest of the Belgian government’s reforms to federal pensions.
But these workers walked off the job entirely on Tuesday when its union, the Professional Association of Maritime and Inland Pilots (BVL), joined multiple other unions in a national work stoppage that also grounded most airplanes at the country’s two main airports.
That strike concluded Wednesday, but like Rotterdam, backlogs at the port are expected to take days to clear.
Operations at Antwerp remain impacted by the “maximum rest” action of the harbor pilots, whose job is to help ship captains guide cargo vessels into the gateway, according to the port.
Congestion persists on the Scheldt River entering and exiting the port system, with 60 ships waiting to depart and 128 inbound vessels awaiting berth. The logistics chain is operating at about 70 percent of normal capacity. All locks and bridges are fully operational, as is the Port of Antwerp-Bruges towage service, which is running at 100 percent availability.
There are three outbound and six inbound vessels at the Port of Zeebrugge.
According to EeSea, the percentage of ships waiting to berth at Antwerp was 54 percent as of Wednesday, up from 50 percent last week. The week before the pilot work slowdown took place, 22.5 percent of vessels were waiting.
“It is too early to estimate how quickly the situation will improve; clearing the backlog will take several days,” the Port of Antwerp-Bruges said in an advisory.
A Port of Rotterdam spokesperson told Dutch publication Nieuwsblad Transport that despite having fewer ships in its queue, the Netherlands-based port isn’t capable of currently alleviating the pressure on its neighboring hub in Belgium.
“There’s no room. We don’t have the capacity to handle them, certainly not until the end of this month,” the spokesperson said. “You can’t catch up in four days. And if they strike again on Friday, it will take until well into November to catch up.”
Victor van der Chijs, chairman of the Deltalinqs business association that represents companies operating at the Port of Rotterdam, told BNR Newsradio the congestion and supply disruptions stemming from the twin labor actions “costs tens of millions.”
“Half of Western Europe is supplied through Rotterdam,” said Van der Chijs.
