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In a mark of international solidarity, a delegation of Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) unionists and rank-and-file workers is in Hong Kong to join the Kwai Tsing dockworkers on the picket line.
MUA National Secretary and President of the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF), Paddy Crumlin, said Australian maritime workers have been deeply disturbed by the abuses of workers by Hong Kong International Terminals’ (HIT) subcontractors and wanted to express their support. The delegation also includes an ITF representative. Mr. Crumlin’s statement:
Following my visit to Hong Kong last week in support of the Kwai Tsing dockworkers, my union has sent representatives from around Australia to stand side-by-side with these workers on the picket line.
Transport and dockworkers around the world are shocked by the treatment of the Kwai Tsing dockworkers under these contracting arrangements.
Australian along with other international dockworkers and transport workers feel strongly enough not just to donate to the cause but to support these workers by standing arm-in-arm.
HIT – which is a subsidiary of the global network terminal operator Hutchison...
Hutchison Port Holdings’ earnings are expected to struggle in fiscal year 2013, as labor disruption at the Port of Hong Kong is likely to drive up wages and limit Hongkong International Terminals’ subcontracted labor flexibility, according to a report by Citi Research.
Revenue at Hutchison Port Holding’s Port of Hong Kong has been impacted by about HK$100 million (about US$12.9 million) since dockworkers and crane operators at the port began striking on March 28. The revenue impact represents less than 1 percent of the total estimated fiscal year 2013 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, assuming a 50 percent-type margin.
More at the Journal of Commerce
Japanese farmers protest against the Trans-Pacific Partnership in Tokyo. Their banner reads: ‘We absolutely oppose Japan’s participation to TPP.’
Farmers in the US are pushing for Japan to join the 11-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership as a way to gain access to the world’s third-largest economy as automakers seek to exclude the Asian nation until it opens its markets.
The US and Japan on April 12 announced an agreement on several longstanding trade issues, paving the way for Japan to join the TPP discussions, which US officials have said they want to complete by the end of the year.
US automakers, in contrast, want to hit the pause button on the negotiations with Japan.
Japan’s inclusion in the talks also is backed by groups including the National Milk Producers Federation, US Dairy Export Council, National Potato Council and Cargill Inc. of Minneapolis.
More at Thanh Nien News
Source: U.S. Labor Against the War
From Global Research:
‘Obama, don’t touch Central America,’ protesting privatization of public resources in El SalvadorThe corporate-financier drive to privatize the Salvadoran economy has taken the form of the proposed Public-Private Partnership law which, if approved, would grant the government the right to sell off national resources, infrastructure and services to foreign multinationals. In effect, it would allow for the privatization of those sectors of the economy traditionally controlled by the state. The ultimate goal of this legislation is not merely to cede control of state institutions to private interests, it is also to subvert and ultimately eliminate the power of organized labor and thereby reduce wages and the standard of living of working people in the country.
Public sector workers in El Salvador earn a minimum wage of $300 per month while their private sector counterparts earn anywhere between $187 and $219 per month. The drive to privatize is, at least in part, aimed and driving down the wages of industrial workers while maximizing profits for foreign investors. However, the law is aimed not only at lowering wages, but weakening the public...
Developments in international trade and transportation will increase the amount of maritime tonnage that will sail through the Suez Canal. This article speculates on the possibility of linking multiple ships during the passage through the canal.
Excerpts from Maritime Executive:
As the volume of international trade grows, the volume of ship traffic or tonnage that sails through the canal will increase in the future. There are a variety of possible alternatives by which to increase the number of shipping containers or the tonnage that sails through the canal would include widening and deepening the canal or increasing the size of ‘Suezmax’ ships that sail through. Another alternative would involve technology that allows ships to be coupled into oceanic trains. … It may be possible for a ‘super-tug’ to simultaneously push one ship while towing a second ship of equivalent size.
The development of such technology would depend on the willingness of Suez Canal authorities to allow coupled maritime trains to sail through the canal, a possible means by which to increase the number of ships and volume of cargo that would sail through the canal. One possible train may...
Hong Kong dock workers strike, April 17, 2013. About 450 workers, mostly crane operators and stevedores, walked out on March 28, seeking higher wages and better working conditions as rising living costs and record home prices spur discontent in the city. The dockworkers at Hong Kong port earn HK$55 ($7) an hour, according to Union of Hong Kong Dockers. That is less than they were paid in 1995.
Hundreds of port workers at Li Ka-shing’s Hong Kong terminals surrounded his Cheung Kong Center headquarters in the city’s business district after rejecting a pay raise aimed at ending a three-week strike.
Contract workers of Li’s Hongkong International Terminals Ltd. were offered a 7 percent raise by their employers, the company said in an e-mail, compared with the workers’ demand for a 23 percent increase. Hong Kong government mediators have helped narrow the differences between employers and workers, Labor Secretary Matthew Cheung told reporters yesterday.
Unhappy at the offer, more than 200 workers gathered outside Cheung Kong Center, holding placards demanding better pay and shouting slogans against Li. The strike, which prompted shipping lines to divert vessels to...
Striking Hong Kong dockworkers. Photo by the South China Morning Post.
Striking dockers vowed action with the effect of a “nuclear bomb” if talks with contractors in the dispute over their pay and conditions break down today.
The threat came as a government source said the administration had set an objective of settling the dispute this week.
No details were given of the planned action, but there were suggestions that the Cheung Kong Center in Central, headquarters of Asia’s richest man Li Ka-shing, had been considered as a target.
A source with knowledge of the strikers’ planning said the organiser, the Confederation of Trade Unions, had two to three plans and would immediately go ahead with one today if talks with contractors Everbest Port Services and Global Stevedoring Service failed.
More at the South China Morning Post
From a Port news release:
The Port of San Diego welcomes two new commissioners representing the City of San Diego. Rafael Castellanos and Marshall Merrifield took the oath of office Monday, April 15, 2013, at the Port of San Diego Administration Building.
The Port is governed by a seven-member board, of which three members are appointed by the City of San Diego and one each is appointed by the cities of Coronado, Chula Vista, National City and Imperial Beach.
Read the rest at the Port of San Diego
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