Strike to be held at ports next week

Port workers in Limassol and Larnaca have announced a 24-hour strike for next week after talks on renewing their collective agreements ended in deadlock.

Members of the trade unions SEK and PEO confirmed to the Cyprus News Agency that port workers will be carrying out a warning strike on Tuesday, October 23.

They said they were forced to take this action because talks with the employers – DP World Limassol and Eurogate at Limassol port, and the Cyprus Shipping Association at Larnaca port – were going nowhere.

The negotiations dragged on from November 2017 to July this year. The workers want their collective agreements renewed, but differences with the employers are so far unbridgeable.

The ministry of labour is trying to mediate in a last-gasp bid to avert a strike. The employers were summoned to the ministry on Monday, while on Friday officials will be seeing the port workers.

The commercial operations at the port of Limassol were privatised in 2017.

The collective agreement concerns about 120 port workers in Limassol, and 30 workers in Larnaca, including the tallymen.

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