The strike – against the intransigence of the company to improve their collective working conditions – will affect operations of the North Pier of the port of Callao in charge of the Danish-Dutch company APM Terminals.
Callao is the largest port of Peru. In 2104, 2,200 container ships called at Peruvian ports, of which 1,645 (78%) arrived at the port of Callao.
APM North Pier Terminal is the major port operator in Callao, with around 70.8% of all vessels calling at the terminal. The APM Callao terminal accounted for 35% of all Peruvian cargo operations, that is 518,729 containers and a total of 14.9 million tonnes of cargo.
The current CBA negotiations with SUTRAMPORPC does not seem to reflect this positive figures as the labour relations have worsened in the past weeks, “The company has launched a campaign against Unionised dock workers, and are suspending many of them. “Workers feel that this course implemented by APM Terminals occurs because we are claiming our rights,” said the Secretary of SUTRAMPORPC, Geraldo Honores.
On April 14, SUTRAMPORPC was forced to organise a 48-hour industrial action, APM reaction was severly criticised by the Union: “Instead of properly negotiate, administrative staff seems to have been forced to carry out cargo operations, a situation that is not only illegal but also contravenes the security of the terminal, which APM says is important.
“No accidents nor casualties were reported but is imporrtant to think on who would be responsible in case an accident may have happened, using non-trained and non-certified workers to do the dockers job is not only a violation of the national labour legislation as well as freedom of association principles, but also shows total lack of responsability. Also we don´t believe insurance companies were notified of this” said the union official.