WALVIS BAY – The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Namibia Ports Authority (Namport), Bisey Uirab says operations have at the container terminal albeit on a limited scale since last Friday.
This comes in the wake of a crippling industrial strike involving 100 workers who grounded all Namport operations in the container terminal since Wednesday last week. The wildcat strike led to the suspension, without pay, of the 100 employees last week Thursday. Namport’s arranged operations for the container terminal are limited to those vessels that are either in port or are imminently due with Namibian cargo only. “Following the illegal industrial action that brought the operations at the Walvis Bay Port container terminal to a stand-still last week Wednesday management is committed to implementing alternative arrangements in the shortest possible time. In order to concentrate resources on container discharge and loading, we are still not in a position to accommodate external truck services to collect or discharge containers until at least today,” Uirab said. He went on to say that break-bulk services, syncrolift and marine services were not affected by the strike.
New Era also learned yesterday that the governor of the Erongo Region, Cleophas Mutjavikua also engaged the suspended employees and implored them to resolve the matter as soon as possible. The strike is set to cost Namport millions of dollars in lost revenue. The illegal strike halted all container terminal operations, since the employees were responsible for the loading, offloading and staging of containers. The suspended employees include mobile crane operators who load and offload trucks. Last week Uirab said the suspended employees are against a new method that was implemented last a week ago to load and to off-load containers. “The new method is expected to increase efficiency and would make it easier to supervise the workers as they are now divided into various zones and not in a group as in the past. They don’t like to work like that, but rather in a group that cannot be correctly monitored,” Uirab explained. He further said the method has already been introduced to the employees in September last year and they were also prepared by the company to work on this system before it was implemented on Monday last week. “The other matter is that the workers are unhappy with a specific supervisor and want the company to remove him. However, no formal complained was made against the said supervisor, but we will investigate the matter,” Uirab said. He said Namport has consulted the regional co-ordinator of the Namibia Transport and Allied Workers Union (NATAU), John Uushona and the Labour Commissioner’s Office with regard to the illegal strike.
“We regret the impact that this illegal strike has had on our customer’s services and operations and request understanding while dealing with the unexpected action,” he said. The same employees also engaged in a strike last year in September and halted operations in the container terminal for two days after three crane operators, who refused to use the newly acquired Liebherr cranes to load cargo onto hauliers, were also suspended.
By Eveline de Klerk