Port unions withdraw strike call

Employee unions of state-run ports today withdrew their call for a strike on next Monday to protest against port corporatisation, after the Shipping Ministry constituted a committee to look into their grievances.
"All the five employee unions are still opposed to corporatisation, but we have been assured by the Indian Ports Association that our interests will be protected," the All-India Port and Dock Workers Federation said in a statement here.
It said following a conciliatory meeting with the Chief Labour Commissioner, the Centre has constituted a committee, which will have representatives from each of the five unions and from the shipping ministry. Port Trust chairmen will also be members of the committee.

The port workers had threatened to go on a strike against corporatisation of the major ports from next Monday. They had first announced an indefinite strike from March 9, which got deferred to March 16, after last-minute talks.
During the week, the unions met the Indian Port Association on March 9 and followed it up with a meeting with Shipping Secretary Rajeev Kumar on March 10, where the idea of forming this committee was suggested for the first time, the statement said.
Under the agreement reached today, the terms of service, pension and also the way a union is recognised has been settled, it said, adding union leaders have also promised to cooperate with the government, IPA and port trusts.

The federation, which is an umbrella body of workers' unions of at the 12 major ports, had termed the budget proposal to corporatise major ports as an "enabling provision" for privatisation and alleging private parties are interested in the commercial aspects in some ports, while the land banks held by the port trusts is a big draw.

In the Budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley had said the government would encourage the 12 major ports run by the government to get corporatised.
"Ports need to attract investments and leverage the huge land resource lying unused with them and to enable us to do so ports in public sector will be encouraged to corporatise and become companies under the Company's Act," he had said.

There are 12 major ports - Kandla, Mumbai, JNPT (Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust), Mormugao, New Mangalore, Kochi, Chennai, Ennore, VO Chidambarnar (formerly Tuticorin Port), Visakhapatnam, Paradip and Kolkata (including Haldia), which handle around 61 percent of the country's total cargo traffic.
It can be noted that minor ports, run by private operators on long-term concessions, have overtaken the state-run ports in many aspects and the Adani-run Mundra Port emerged as the largest in terms of volumes.