Flemish maritime pilots have announced that they are suspending their strike as of Wednesday morning. The unions that represent them say that the strike is being suspended in order to give negotiations with the Flemish government another chance. The pilots’ industrial action got under way on 5 October. Since then, access to Flemish ports for seagoing vessels has been limited. The entire logistics chain in the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge has been severely disrupted.
At 7:30 am on Wednesday the marine pilots suspended their strike “in order to break the current deadlock between the pilots' union and the Flemish government”. The unions and the associations that represent the marine pilots want to give negotiation another chance.
Since Sunday 5 October, the professional associations (AvK, BvL and OVL) and the trade unions (ACOD, ACV and VSOA) that represent Flemish maritime pilots have jointly been staging industrial action. This has caused delays for many ships, costing shippers, freight forwarders and freight terminals at our ports millions of euro.
Arbitration
In a statement released on Tuesday evening the professional associations and unions that represent the maritime pilots said “After ten days of action, the Flemish Government is being given ten day’s respite, until 24 October, to demonstrate that it is prepared to honour the agreement made on 2 June and through arbitration to reach a final agreement by the end of November at the latest”.
The Professional Association of Marine Pilots (BvL) believes that the Federal Pensions Minister Jan Jambon (Flemish nationalist) and his party colleague, the Flemish Ports Minister Annick De Ridder “suddenly no longer wish to honour" an earlier agreement on maritime pilots’ pensions. Pilots feel they are being singled out much more than others involved in ports and shipping.