Dive Brief:
- Spain's dockworkers and port employers' association (ANESCO) reached an agreement Thursday, marking the end to a four month-long conflict over the port sector's employment laws, El Pais reports. The months of conflict cost Spain more than 150 million euros ($171 million) in losses.
- Under the agreement, ANESCO guarantees 100% employee retention, while the stevedores have accepted a 10% salary reduction across the board. The two parties remain in talks to determine recruitment practices, however.
- As a result of the deal, the dockworkers called off the future work stoppages and two-day strikes that had been planned for the first two weeks of July.
Dive Insight:
The new deal is a victory for dockworkers, not just in Spain, but worldwide. As smart and automated terminals grow in popularity, workers worldwide are protesting displacement.
Stevedores' unions like the ones in Spain — as well as the International Longshoremen's Association and the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, which represent dockworkers in the U.S. — have long used their disruptive capacity as leverage to command wages upward of $100,000. Their victory in Spain and high pay show that, unlike other unions who have suffered from globalization, dockworkers' unions know how to win.
At least, that's the narrative that makes protests so effective, commanding a high turnout among union members. The first 48-hour port strike in Spain commanded 100% worker participation. In addition, the International Dockworkers' Council organized a Europe-wide, two-hour work stoppage that took place Thursday, June 29, to support laborers in Spain and Sweden. Earlier in the year, U.S. members of the ILA traveled to Spain to protest, before organizing for a potential strike of their own against practices at the Port of Charleston and the Port of New York-New Jersey.
In brief, the crisis in Spain may be over, but as ports seek greater efficiencies through innovation, they will also have to deal with a heavily organized labor force. Supply chain managers should remain abreast of future strikes, as dockworkers' war against labor displacement — due to automation or any other reason, really — is far from over.
