The Hindu Business Line : As strike ends at Chennai Container Terminal... <br> Port users, trade want long-term solution

Lorries idle during the recent strike at the Chennai Container Terminal. The strike highlighted the urgent need for a second container terminal at the port. — Vino John

BOXED in. That is how users of the container terminal inside the Chennai port must have felt for almost a fortnight as workers at the terminal were on strike. Even as the trade heaves a sigh of relief as normal operations resume, trade representatives feel that there is still need for a more permanent arrangement — in the form of another container terminal in Chennai — so that they are not caught in a bind again in the future.

Hectic negotiations helped finally clinch a deal and workers agreed to call off the strike from the third shift on Saturday. It is expected that the backlog will be cleared in about a week.From the night of May 23, the non-management staff of Chennai Container Terminal Ltd, the private sector company that runs the terminal inside the Chennai port, went on strike.

The workers say they were agitating against what they describe are unfair management practices and not for a wage hike, while the management contends that it was yet another way of forcing its hand on the wage revision.

The Chennai Port management did its best to break the impasse while the Shipping Minister, Mr T. R. Baalu, even appealed to the management to show magnanimity and reinstate the four workers for work to resume.

Trade sources say there is little that the Chennai Port Trust can do in this matter as it is essentially a dispute between a private company and its employees. Unless there is violation of the concession agreement, the port cannot directly intervene.

The labour discord at the terminal has been simmering since January and burst into the open last month resulting in slowing movement of export and import containers. When the Chennai Container Terminal Employees Association threatened to go on strike last month, the terminal's operator, Chennai Container Terminal Ltd (CCTL) obtained an injunction from the Madras High Court against the threatened strike.

The CCTL management says that the wages demanded in the revision are exorbitant and unreasonable. For instance, it says, the employees association wants the salary of a checker to be increased from about Rs 6,000 to Rs 49,000. The Chennai Container Employees Association denies this and says that the increase sought for ranges from Rs 2,000-5,000, depending on the category of workers.

The immediate provocation for the agitation, according to the workers, is that the CCTL management was collecting signatures on blank sheets of paper from workers, a charge that is vehemently denied by the management. Mr Jimmy Sarbh, Chairman, CCTL, told Business Line that no such thing had been done and would ever be done.

The CCTL management suspended four workers and after repeated mediation efforts from various quarters, agreed to take back three. As for the fourth worker, the management was firm that an independent enquiry would have to be conducted and its outcome would decide the worker's fate. However, after repeated pleas from those interested in a settlement, the CCTL management agreed to take him back, with conditions. These included: The worker should not be president of the association or involve himself in union activities, can be posted anywhere, could be given any job by the management, and the outcome of the enquiry would be binding.

Agreeing to all these conditions, according to those in the know, is like signing one's own death warrant.

As the deadlock continued, exporters and importers started diverting containers to Tuticorin port. But there too, according to users of the Chennai Container Terminal, problems persist.

First, a large number — as many as 250 trucks — have been diverted to Tuticorin because of this, resulting in shortage in Chennai.

Second, this diversion in container traffic to Tuticorin has resulted in both a slot shortage — no space on vessels — and vessel shortage.

The trade is also upset that CCTL wants it to pay demurrage when the containers are held up at the terminal for no fault of the trade. Responding to this, CCTL has agreed to refund container storage and late arrival charges. Trade representatives also say that they are kept in the dark about what is happening at the terminal.

Users say that the container terminal, which was handed over to P&O under a concession agreement in 2001, is working at 50 per cent of its efficiency compared to January.

Against a turnaround time of 24 hours for a 1,000 TEU (twentyfoot equivalent unit) vessel, the time taken now is 48-50 hours; quay crane operations are down to 650 on an average against 1,200 in January. There are almost 7,900 TEUs in the terminal's yard now — 6,100 import boxes, 1,470 export containers and the rest empties.

Even as the dispute has been resolved for now, trade representatives strongly feel that there is need for another container terminal for Chennai so that there is competition because of which trade will benefit. The concession agreement between the Chennai Port Trust and P&O Ports prevents the port trust from having a competing facility for three years.

However, according to those in the know, there is no bar on the Government taking steps to have another terminal. In any case, the three-year period ends this November.

Trade sources say that port users had suggested as many as 70 amendments when the draft concession agreement was circulated to them, none of which was incorporated.

The sources say that there has to be a service — container terminal — that is contemporary and only the best in world practices should be followed and enforced at terminals that have been handed over to private operators.

Ennore Port Ltd, which manages the Ennore Port on the northern outskirts of Chennai, says it has commissioned a study on the feasibility of a container terminal. And it will need only 18 months from the time it receives the green signal from the Shipping Ministry and awards the contract to a private operator to get the terminal in operation.

With the Shipping Minister hailing from Chennai, trade sources are hoping he will take note and speed up steps to have a second container terminal operational at the earliest.

More Stories on : Shipping | Trade & Labour Unions

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