The Hindu Business Line : CCTL to recruit operators to handle quay cranes

WITH the non-management staff at Chennai container terminal on strike for the second day on Tuesday, the Chennai Container Terminal Ltd plans to recruit new operators to handle quay cranes, rubber-tyred gantry cranes and checkers. The company will issue advertisements in newspapers on Wednesday calling for candidates, said a reliable source.

"Workers are not coming to work. We want things to continue in the terminal," said the source. Some of the striking workers have come back to work, the source added.

From Monday night, the company's supervisors and engineers started handling containers in the terminal. The company has also brought in operators from its sister firms, Nhava Sheva and Mundra container terminals, to carry out container movements. The handling is about 14 moves per hour, compared to about eight last night, the source said.

While handling is taking place inside the terminal, the striking employees are not allowing trucks to enter the terminal. This has affected movement of boxes in and out of the terminal, the source said.

In a trade communication, the CCTL, which operates the container terminal, has asked container freight stations (CFS) to withhold despatch of export boxes for a few days to prevent build up of traffic queues of trailers and provide relief to the truckers. "We seek the forbearance of the trade with respect to the current situation and request your assistance in restraining the flow of laden export boxes to the terminal, until the trailers already in queue are able to offload their containers into the container yard," the communication says.

The CCTL said that a long-term settlement with its workforce is underway and in terms of the interim injunction granted by the Madras High Court on April 26, the strike resorted to by the labour is illegal.

Workers by boat: With striking employees preventing people entering the container terminal, the CCTL took operators from Mumbai and Mundra by a boat to the terminal. The operators will stay inside the terminal and do the work till the problem is sorted out, said a source.