Port users slam disruptive union meetings

Cape Town port users are
steaming about the port
authority’s insistence that
meetings with union members
take place during shift times –
and eat into the already limited
working time available.
There’s a second gripe,
according to port users’
spokesman Peter Newton,
director of Seaboard.
The agreement between
the port management and the
unions is that the workers must
be given 48 hours’ notice of
each intended meeting. While
still not accepting the necessity
of shift-time meetings (albeit
“only occasional”, according
to port management), the
users demanded that they
should also be informed
simultaneously – “So we could
plan around the events,”
said Newton.