General Workers’ Union protests against Ports Services Directive

Abstract

Early this year, Port employees were ordered by General Workers’ Union to take partial industrial action to protest against the proposed Port Services Directive. The European Parliament rejected the Directive by a vote of 532 to 120. The Port Services Directive, proposed two years ago by the Commission and rejected after strong opposition by port workers, was once again presented to the European Parliament. The new proposed Directive, among others, states that it will allow ship owners to employ their crew in handling cargo. On 11 and 12 January, Maltese Port workers stopped working for a number of hours in protest against the proposed Port Services Directive. This industrial action was taken at the Maltese Ports by the General Workers’ Union (GWU (http://www.gwu.org.mt/)) in conjunction with all the other European unions who organised similar partial industrial actions in all ports across Europe. The Maritime and Aviation Section Secretary of GWU stated that these actions were taken to express solidarity with workers across Europe and to send a clear message to the European Parliament of their opposition to this Directive. GWU was the only Maltese union which took action against this Directive despite the fact that there are other unions representing workers in this sector. Apart from this measure, 22 port workers who are members of GWU went to Strasburg to join other European workers in a demonstration organised by the International Transport Federation (ITF) and the European Transport Federation (ETF) and held on 16 January.