{"id":381,"date":"2019-01-24T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-24T17:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/portstrategy.nfdtesting.uk\/coastlink\/2019\/01\/24\/swedish-ports-crippled-by-strikes\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T15:11:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T14:11:15","slug":"swedish-ports-crippled-by-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/2019\/01\/24\/swedish-ports-crippled-by-strikes\/","title":{"rendered":"Swedish ports crippled by strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"

The SHWU (also known as the Swedish Dockworkers Union) had been involved in mediation talks with Ports of Sweden on 22 January over its bid to secure a CBA, and which has previously seen it take strike action<\/a>, however it said it rejected a proposed deal because it would mean giving up its right to participate in and negotiate contracts as well as the right to take action if agreements are violated by the employer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe dockers ‘union rejects the mediators’ contract bid because it requires the union to renounce the right to participate in local settlements at the workplaces where the members work, the possibility of interpreting their own agreement and the right to bring an action before the Labor Court if the employer party violates contractual agreements,\u201d stated SHWU. \u201cThus, the union would voluntarily cancel trade union rights resulting from normal collective agreements in the Swedish labor market by law and applicable case law.\u201d<\/p>\n

On 14 January, the union said it had organised a total overtime stoppage in the northern ports and strikes in Helsingborg, Ume\u00e5, Karlshamn and S\u00f6derhamn. However while the strike action totalled two hours, this was followed by a lockout by Ports of Sweden social media posts on Twitter show.<\/p>\n

A spokesperson for the Swedish Harbour Workers\u2019 Union told The Loadstar<\/em> around 1,000 dockers were participating in three-hour strikes, but had been locked out for the whole day and evening.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe employers\u2019 organisation, Ports of Sweden, has escalated the conflict with massive lockouts,\u201d said the spokesperson.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, in Malm\u00f6, the strike today was 7am to 10am, and yet the lockout is 7am until 11.59pm, and this is the same pattern all around the country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Among affected ports are Gavle, Gothenburg, Helsingborg, Holmsund, Karlshamn, Malm\u00f6, Stockholm, Soderhamn, Sundsvall and Umea, reported The Loadstar<\/em>.<\/p>\n

More strike action is expected later this week.<\/p>\n

Swedish Transport Workers Union (SWTU) already has a CBA and workers operating under it are not affected by the lockout, but STWU secretary Peter Winsten said previous disputes led terminal operators like APMT to cut jobs without being union specific.<\/p>\n

Mattias Dahl, CEO of Transportf\u00f6retagen and Joakim \u00c4rlund, President of the Ports of Sweden said in an article published on Transportf\u00f6retagen\u2019s website on 21 January that the Ports of Sweden have decided to lock out the members of the strike workers’ union as a \u201cnecessary defence\u201d measure. \u201cOf course, the lockout is only directed against those who are members of the Harbor Workers’ Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

They added: \u201cThe docket workers’ strikes threaten to hit hard at the ports concerned, which in turn affects the companies that ship their goods. By extension, the whole of Sweden and everyone who is dependent on the Swedish economy is affected. An impact assessment of the Harbor Workers’ Association’s earlier conflict measures in Gothenburg <\/a>showed that the costs for these amounted to SEK 4.5 billion, only in 2017.\u201d<\/p>\n

The dispute has been ongoing since 2016.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sweden\u2019s ports are continuing to face the fallout from a dispute over a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) led by the Swedish Harbour Workers\u2019 Union (SHWU), as the organisation\u2019s workers take part in strikes across multiple ports in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-europe"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":383,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions\/383"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}