APM Terminals escalates the Gothenburg dispute - massive lockout announced from the 19th of May

2017-05-12

The notice about an upcoming lockout is a dramatic escalation of the conflict, and the concequences are hard to grasp.



From the 19th of May until the 30th of June, APM Terminals will execute lockout action against all SDU members in the container terminal between 16.00 and 07.00 on weekdays. At the same time, the company announced in a press release that the terminal will close down it's operations on all weekday evenings and nights during the period.



When the lockout notice was delievered, the company couldn't specify how the individual dockworkers would be affected.

In internal communication to the employees later on, APM Terminals stated that dockworkers scheduled to work evening shifts would be shut out of the workplace at 16.00 (most evening shifts start at 15.00) and would receive no pay for the remainder of the shift. The different night shifts were informed that their work patterns would be "changed to daytime work every other week", which means that they will be locked out without pay the rest of the time.

However, when APM Terminals CEO Henrik Kristensen was interviewed by Swedish Radio, he delivered a different message about what the practical implications of the announced lockout would be:



SWEDISH RADIO: "(...) will they [the dockworkers] work daytime shifts or will they be locked out without pay?"



CEO KRISTENSEN: "That is correct, they will work the daytime shift. We will do that so that the individual coworker working evening or night shifts will not be affected. We will adjust the working hours."



APM Terminals later retracted Kristensen's statement and clarified that the previous message to the staff was the correct one.



Most dockworkers with employment contracts in the container terminal work Day/Evening shifts and the port has around a hundred dockworkers scheduled to work on an average weekday evening. The scheduled workforce during the weekday nights amounts to some 40 dockworkers per night. Thus, APM Terminals announcement that it will shut down all operations 15 hours per weekday means that the vast majority of the SDU's members will be locked out and have their salaries cut by half during the whole period.



The Swedish Dockworkers' Union acknowledges that APM Terminals has the legal right to take large-scale industrial action and initiate a lockout of it's own workforce, but expects the APMT management to take responsibility for it's own actions as it now drastically escalates the dispute. Just during the first of the 28 affected weekdays, the lockout will stop production for twice as long as all SDU actions during the last six months. It is simply irresponsible to try to blame the announced shutdown of evening and night operations in the terminal on the workforce's unwillingness to work overtime, while at the same time claiming that that some 30 permanently employed dockworkers (and twice as many on temporary contracts) are redundant. APM Terminals re-affirmed it's position yesterday, saying in an internal letter to the staff that redundancy layoffs will go ahead as planned:

"The redundacy notice still stands and layoffs will begin before summer."



The SDU is prepared to sign a CBA including a 'no strike' clause, and rejects APM Terminals' claim that the union "refuses to sign the industry's Collective Bargaining Agreement". In January this year, the Swedish Dockworkers' Union even made a direct public offer to sign the current national CBA in a tripartite contract together with the Swedish Transport Workers' Union (STWU) and the employers' organisation Ports of Sweden. At this point, there is a window of opportunity to reach such an agreement as the national CBA has expired and central contract negotiations are ongoing.

Locally, the SDU local 4 is open to any kind of contract solution in the Gothenburg container terminal that will, in practice, mean the union becomes an equal CBA stakeholder together with the minority union STWU.



APM Terminals Gothenburg's CEO Henrik Kristensen stated on Swedish Radio yesterday that he hopes to reach an agreement with the SDU in the next seven days, before the lockout is launched. However, as of now there are no negotiations or meetings planned. The SDU is being shut out of the central contract negotiations and the union has been forced to sue Ports of Sweden for it's refusal to even come to the negotiation table. In Gothenburg, APM Terminals has not summoned the SDU to a single negotiation during 2017.



The SDU local 4 held an extra board meeting on Wednesday to discuss APM Terminals' notice of industrial action. All SDU members in the container terminal will soon be called to a membership assembly to decide on how the union should respond to the company's lockout notice and related issues. Detailed information on proposals for the assembly will be presented later.



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