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The Container Terminal Burchardkai: Port workers are on strike
Photo: Christian Charisius / picture alliance / dpa
In the conflict over the payment of port workers, the Ver.di trade union continued its two-day warning strike on Friday.
"Today it will continue, hopefully just as loud and strong as yesterday," said trade union secretary Stephan Gastmeier.
The strike is due to end on Saturday morning.
According to Ver.di, the Hamburg labor court approved the ongoing warning strike in the Hanseatic city, but then imposed a peace obligation on the conflicting parties in a settlement until the end of August.
Labor courts in Bremen, Oldenburg and Wilhelmshaven had rejected applications for injunctions from several port logisticians to stop the warning strike.
Seven unsuccessful rounds of negotiations
The union had called for the warning strike that began on Thursday morning to increase the pressure on employers after seven unsuccessful rounds of negotiations.
It is the third warning strike within a few weeks and the fiercest labor dispute in the ports for more than four decades.
It affects all important ports on the North Sea, i.e. in addition to the largest German seaport Hamburg also Bremerhaven, Bremen, Emden, Wilhelmshaven and Brake.
Ver.di has announced a central rally in Hamburg for Friday afternoon.
Several thousand employees are expected.
The strike in the seaports comes at a bad time for port logisticians.
Due to the corona virus, there is already a great deal of confusion in the global traffic of container and cargo ships.
The warning strike is now throwing the processes at the quay edges even more out of step.
This further exacerbates the tense situation with a ship jam on the North Sea.
As early as June, many terminals could hardly cope with the rush because container slots are scarce.
At the same time, the lockdown in China with port closures caused confusion in the shipping companies' timetables.
The supply chain problems for many companies in Germany had increased massively due to the traffic jam in front of Shanghai.
jpa/dpa
