We hereby invite you to an rally to support the dockers in Oslo

I am posting this on behalf of Svein Lundeng

WE DEMAND A COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT WITH YILPORT OSLO! - WE DEMAND OSLO PORT AUTHORITY TO STOP UNDERMINING DOCKER'S RIGHTS! 

We are hoping that as many people, unions and organizations as possible are able to join the event. Bring your flags and banners! The rally will be outside Oslo Port Authority's HQ on Vippetangen, Skur 38. (Bus no. 60 from the Central train station)

Prior to this we will arrange a meeting where those interested can get the latest developments and discuss the battle ahead.https://www.facebook.com/events/1599652816926374/

Here is a simple way to show support for these Dockers. Seriously how simple is this..
For those who can not attend the rally: Filling Yilport's and the Port of Oslo's inboxes with emails of support for Oslo Dockers is easy. It only takes a few minuets and your message can be simple, here are their demands- WE DEMAND A COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT WITH YILPORT OSLO!
- WE DEMAND OSLO PORT AUTHORITY TO STOP UNDERMINING DOCKER'S RIGHTS!
Here are the emails below, why not send one to all of them.
For Yilport
mi@yilport.com.tr
pr@yilport.com.tr
info@yilport.com.tr
Here is the phone number as well
(0090) 262 679 7600
For the Port of Oslo
postmottak@hav.oslo.kommune.no

Join

SUPPORT THE DOCKERS IN OSLO

Monday, June 22 at 1:00pm in UTC+02

Vippetangen, Skur 38

Of course, the dockers are hooligans

• 09.06.2015 kl.12:48 i International readers
 
• Ingen kommentarer

The year is 2015. It is June. Outside the port of Oslo 40 dockers are protesting.

Why, you ask? Let me explain.

The employers

Oslo Losse og Lastekontor (OLLK), (literally translated: The Oslo Loading and Unloading Office), is a so-called non-profit organisation. A non-profit enterprise established and controlled jointly by the local employers' organisation, Dampskipsekspeditørenes (Dampen), and the Oslo branch of the Norwegian Transport Workers' Union, Oslo Bryggearbeideres forening (OBF). The organisation was set up in 1947. Price levels for the services the Oslo dock workers are required to deliver are set by a Board of OLLK. The Board is made up of three representatives from Dampen and two from OBF, meaning the majority of members come from the employers' side. The General Manager at OLLK is also the General Manager at Dampen. Despite this, his position within OLLK is supposed to be neutral. He attends OLLK Board meetings but does not have voting rights.

Even though the dock workers are permanent employees of OLLK, it is not OLLK who provides them with work. The real employers at the dock are the port users and port operators who have collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) in place with OBF. These agreements are part of the industry-wide agreement between the Norwegian Transport Workers Federation (NTF) and NHO Logistics and Transport (NHO LT). These are under the umbrella of the national agreements between the LO (the national trade union body) and the NHO (the national employers' organization). Billing, payments and dockers' salaries all go through the OLLK, effectively fulfilling an administrative role. Any profits are reaped by the employers. Likewise, any losses are also covered by them.

Through the OLLK, all the dock workers in the port of Oslo are permanent employees and are guaranteed a fixed salary. They don't have fixed working hours but work at the different terminals according the needs of the port users and port operators. Day or night, in summer or winter, they are always on call and always available for work.

Illegal lock-out

On Thursday 21st May, OBF, the dockers' union in the port of Oslo, received a call from a lawyer informing them that OLLK was bankrupt and that the doors to the office would be closed at 3.30pm that same day. The dockers still had work to finish and duties to fulfil. In order to carry on with their work, they took on the administrative part and continued the business from their local union office.  The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) the dockers are covered by is still valid. Despite this, the dockers were refused access to the terminals where they should have carried out their work on the following Friday after the announced bankruptcy. There was work at the ferry terminals. There was also work that included moving containers on the quay as well as the loading and unloading of general cargo, iron, scrap metal, machine parts, building materials, concrete blocks and so on. Instead, the dockers were prevented from working and found themselves victims of a lock-out. An illegal lock-out.

Dockers in Oslo are not on strike

You may have noticed that Oslo Havn KF (the local port authority, municipal enterprise) isn't mentioned in the text above. That is because it isn't part of the dockers' collective agreement. Despite this, the local authority in Oslo have attacked terms and conditions in the port. In fact, in 2012, Oslo Havn KF devised a strategy to get rid of the dockers and their CBA. The strategy would use four different tactics. NHO LT, Dampen and the General Manager of OLLK were all part of this strategy.

One of the tactics in this strategy was to influence public opinion against the dockers.  The result was numerous newspaper articles. We heard about "the world's most expensive lunch" and "antiquated CBAs". The truth was that the docks did not stop operations six times a day for smoke breaks and lunch, as the papers claimed, and, far from being out of date, the CBA was renegotiated every two years.

And as members of the Board of Oslo Havn KF constantly mentioned the (legal) boycott in Risavika and the (legal) sympathy strikes in Mosjøen and Tromsø, every time they spoke about the dockers in Oslo, many people were left with the impression that they were also on strike.  The dockers in Oslo have not been on strike for many years.

The labour court judgement

Last year, in 2014, the Labour Court heard a case relating to an exemption from the dockers' national CBA. The exemption says that the dockers' right to have priority of engagement to work on the docks did not apply to "company facilities where the company's own people" (industrial/production companies) carry out loading and unloading. The Labour Court's premise for this said that the exception applies where the company has exclusive disposal of the quay area/terminal.

Around the time of Labour Court decision, it became known that landowners and port authority, Oslo Havn KF had awarded a twenty-year operating concession to the Turkish company, Yilport Holding.  Yilport Holding would run the container terminal in Oslo. Yilport Holding became Yilport Oslo Terminal Investments AS (YO) and began operating as of 1st February this year. Long before this, in November last year, the dockers had already sent their first request to YO for a discussion on the future of the collective agreement at the terminal. YO never answered. They didn't respond to reminders and further requests either. They didn't even bother to collect the registered letters from the post office (actually, they didn't answer Dampen's enquiry on pricing either).

NTF invited them to voluntary mediation through the State Mediator's office. They didn't even want to meet to discuss this.

At the end of January, however, an answer did come from YO- they did not want to use registered dockers at the terminal. So, apparently Oslo Havn KF had awarded Turkish YO exclusive disposal of a delimited area of the terminal in the port of Oslo. For twenty years. In this way, the local authority could undermine the very foundations of the dockers' collective bargaining agreement and YO were free to bring in cheaper labour. Whether YO actually have exclusive disposal or whether it just the claims of the some members of the Oslo Havn KF Board in the media, we don't know (yet). The majority of the city council, the Committee for Transport and Environment and council leaders appear to have given their full support to the local authority's involvement in the conflict.

Oslo Havn KF created the conflict in Oslo

It is claimed that this conflict has been longstanding in the port of Oslo. Long before all this. This is untrue. There have been local disputes but nothing of great significance. The conflict started when Oslo Havn KF (with many supporters) published an article in April 2013 (part of its strategy to change public opinion, as I have mentioned above). The purpose was to put pressure on the dockers to enter into an unreasonable agreement despite the CBA having been renegotiated and signed off the year before. Just to reiterate, Oslo Havn KF is not a party to the CBA. I would like to underline as well that NHO LT were complicit in the preparation of the strategy (in 2012) adopted by the Board of Oslo Havn KF at the same time as they were signing a new CBA period with the dockers. The same again in 2014.

This strategy of changing public opinion was only lies and unreasonable claims written and compiled by a PR consultant - in order to defame dockers. These claims have never been supported by documentation or a base of evidence, just big claims from powerful people. 

But, of course, it is the "striking" dockers who are the hooligans here. Hooligans who fight for a fair CBA. Hooligans who fight against a public entity and an employers' association who illegally locked them out from their own workplace. Hooligans who are fighting a war against social dumping. Hooligans who are fighting for decent conditions in their working lives.

In my eyes, these "hooligans" are heroes.

~ Translated by Jessica Fenn Samuelsen ~

Rally @ the port of Oslo at the 22nd of June:

We hereby invite you to an rally to support the dockers in Oslo.

- WE DEMAND A COLLECTIVE AGREEMENT WITH YILPORT OSLO!
- WE DEMAND OSLO PORT AUTHORITY TO STOP UNDERMINING DOCKER'S RIGHTS!

We are hoping that as many people, unions and organizations as possible are able to join the event. Bring your flags and banners!

The rally will be outside Oslo Port Authority's HQ on Vippetangen, Skur 38.
(Bus no. 60 from the Central train station)

Prior to this we will arrange a meeting where those interested can get the latest developments and discuss the battle ahead.

Facebook event here.

http://bryggesjauerfrue.blogg.no/1433846932_of_course_the_dockers.html

Pier dockers Lady

34, Sørum

I am 34 years, living in the countryside with my brew handler and our two kids; a girl of 3 years and a boy of 1 year .. Mail: bryggesjauerfrue@live.no