More
than 50 dockers from several Swedish ports met today in Gothenburg, Sweden, for
a workshop about lashing, where concrete plans for rolling out the lashing
campaign in Sweden were made.
Lashing – the
fastening of cargo to a ship – is a key part of dockers’ work. Only dockers
have the skills to do this dangerous task safely, but many shipowners push
seafarers to lash cargo in order to save time and money. This puts seafarers at
risk of accidents and eats into their shore leave, while taking away work from
qualified dockers already under pressure from port automation.
Peter
Lövkvist, Head of the international department of Swedish Transport
Workers' Union, delcared "we are proud to host the ETF and the ITF here in
Gothenburg today. As technological developments erode the number of jobs in
ports, we are determined to get back any single job in our ports, inlcuding
lashing."
Today’s workshop is part of our long-running campaign with
the ITF to defend the principle that lashing is dockers’ work. The campaign
recently achieved a major victory, with a global agreement between maritime
employers and unions that lashing work should only be done by dockers unless
otherwise agreed. However, we now need to make sure that this dockers’ clause
is implemented. Dockers must be informed and ready to mobilise because their
role will be crucial.
Our workshops are part of that process, and this is the
first in a new series of meetings to follow up on the recent agreement. The
Swedish participants were joined by international guests including the ITF and
ETF Secretariats, ITF inspectors, a delegation of Norwegian dockers, and
members of the ETF Dockers Steering Committee.
Chair of the ETF Dockers Section, Terje Samuelsen, said that “lashing is a real priority for the ETF.
We need to build on our recent success in global negotiations and get the
dockers’ clause implemented all over Europe. Solidarity has always been key to
our success: solidarity between dockers in different countries and solidarity
between dockers and seafarers. Workers standing together can fight against
social dumping and exploitation: that’s the message of our campaign for Fair
Transport in Europe.”
Mikael
Gustafsson, who is very active in the ETF young dockers’ group and a
youth representative in the Swedish Transport Workers’ Union, stressed how
important the lashing campaign is for younf workers: “Lashing is crucial for
the future of dockwork, and we young dockers are fully engaged in the struggle
and determined to get it back.”
© European Transport Workers' Federation
Galerie AGORA, Rue du Marché aux Herbes 105, Boîte 11, B -
1000 Bruxelles
+32 2 285 46 60 • dockers@etf-europe.org • www.etf-europe.org
Комментариев нет:
Отправить комментарий