Port Workers in Mangalore Demand Shipping Companies Implement Labour Laws

Workers at the New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) have been on an indefinite strike since 29 January, demanding implementation of labour laws by shipping companies engaged in cargo movement at the port.

These port workers are led by the All India Port Workers Federation (AIPWF), which is affiliated to the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU). Operations at the New Mangalore Port, the only major port in Karnataka, came almost entirely to a halt. 

Although the port workers carry out the operations and activities of the New Mangalore Port, the vast majority of them have not been employed directly by the NMPT, but rather by shipping companies as well as stevedoring agents and C&F (Clearing and Forwarding) agents. 

This is keeping in line with the drastic reduction in the number of port workers directly employed by Port Trusts across the country since the neoliberal restructuring of the Indian economy in the early 1990s.

This has led to the workforce lacking security in terms of jobs and wages as well as flagrant violations of labour laws by the shipping companies. There have been instances of workers at NMPT being thrown out for forming or attempting to form a union.

The service conditions and working conditions of these workers are not streamlined, even as their numbers have become overwhelmingly large. There is also huge disparity in the wages and service conditions of workers employed by different companies while doing the same work. 

Speaking to the ML Update weekly, AIPWF vice-president V Shankar said it was unfortunate that workers had to resort to a strike to demand implementation of labour laws, but that the employers were cruel while the grievance redressal mechanisms related to the port were ineffective and non-functional. 

“Semi-slavery or semi-bondedness prevails right under our nose at NMPT and there is no mechanism to enforce laws,” V Shankar told the ML Update weekly.

The AIPWF is demanding that the service conditions and working conditions of these shipping companies-employed workers be streamlined and their wages be regulated through three-year agreements. The workers demand that the NMPT act as a watchdog for the implementation of labour laws, failing which the chairman should cancel the licence of the shipping companies.