French Ports Face Fresh Unrest

French ports are facing further labor unrest after dock workers' leaders mounted a new challenge to controversial plans to privatize container handling.

The CGT union, which represents most longshoremen, last Friday threatened strike action if the government does not offer fresh guarantees on the jobs and wages of dock workers affected by the privatization at France's seven state-controlled ports.

France's ports were paralyzed by three months of rolling strikes last year as dock workers tried to force a government climb down, resulting in a steep drop in container traffic at Le Havre and Marseilles, the country's top box hubs.

But President Nicolas Sarkozy, who was personally involved in the privatization plan, refused to budge, and the unions called off their strikes after Parliament voted in the reforms in July.

The government has given the seven port authorities until April 3 to draw up plans to transfer around 2,000 container crane operators from their payrolls to private stevedores.

President Sarkozy says the reforms, which also lessen state control of the waterfront, are vital to restore the competitiveness of French ports, whose share of European container traffic has slumped from nearly 12 percent in 1989 to around 6 percent in 2006.More than half of France's container imports pass through foreign ports.

The CGT wants to re-negotiate the terms of the reform to tighten the guarantees over jobs and earnings, fearing private stevedores will use the economic downturn as pretext to re-visits contracts. "We will use all legal means to stop this fraud," the union said.

Dockers at Marseilles and Nantes Saint-Nazaire have been staging strikes over the past few weeks, but the government has insisted the original reforms must be adapted by April.

Dockers at Nantes Saint-Nazaire reached agreement with the port authority over implementation of the reform on Friday, but longshoremen at Marseille are preparing for further walkouts.

Sarkozy says crane operators at the Mediterranean port put in 2,000 hours a year, against 4,000 hours for dock workers in Barcelona and Antwerp.

The government claims its reforms will help boost France's annual container traffic from 3.6 million TEUs in 2007 to 10 million TEUs in 2015 and create an additional 30,000 jobs.

The seven ports affected by the reform are: Le Havre, Marseilles, Dunkirk, Rouen, Nantes Saint-Nazaire, Bordeaux and La Rochelle.

French ports were idled last Thursday after dock workers joined a 24 hours general strike to protest the government's economic policies.