Unions threaten to derail port concessioning

Terry Hutson THE THREE trade unions involved in the port environment, South African Transport & Allied Workers Union (SATAWU), United Transport & Allied Workers Union (UTATU) and South African Logistics, Services, Transport & Allied Workers Union (SALSTAFF), have threatened to derail plans for the concessioning of port terminals, starting with the Durban container terminal. This follows a recent statement from minister of public enterprises Jeff Radebe that the Durban container terminal will go out on tender later this year for concessioning early in 2003. According to Randall Howard, general secretary of SATAWU, government is unfairly targeting workers for poor productivity and has quoted this as the reason why it intends concessioning the terminals to private operators. "Our members are not being treated with any respect and are being blamed for poor productivity at the terminals, whereas it is the lack of infrastructure spending in the past years that is the problem," he told FTW. Randall said that concessioning was being imposed on them with total disregard for the national framework agreement. "We intend mobilising our membership to resist concessioning until we are treated with the respect we deserve."