With the new dead port operation scheduled for January 22 to 24, 2020 in Le Havre and Rouen, Haropa takes stock of the damage caused by blockages in Seine-Maritime.
With nearly 14 days of complete strike and blockade, the losses are heavy for the ports of Rouen and Le Havre. Since Wednesday 22nd January 2020 and for a period of 72 hours, a new “ dead port ” operation has been launched by the dockers and porters of Seine-Maritime.
Last week, several companies and economic players in the Seine basin had accused the blow, pointing to the devastating effects that the blockages had on the “port economic fabric”. In Havre in particular, the carriers, “collateral victims” of the mobilisation against the pension reform, were worried about the layoffs and their decline in port activity.
Haropa does the accounts
With this new blocking announcement, Haropa (all the ports of the Seine axis) decided, in a press release, to alert on “the serious consequences” of this mobilization.
The first reports of damage are as follows: “Since December, the 14 days of strikes and complete blockages have generated a loss of nearly 100,000 containers and nearly 300 jobs. “And since the implementation of” dead ports “operations,” 227 stopovers have been delayed or cancelled, “announces the port alliance.
Future legal action?
The Rouen port union (UPR), an association of 130 companies, made a bailiff report on Wednesday 22 January at the port of Rouen. “It has been noted that a certain number of identified individuals have prevented access to the RVSL terminal (Rouen Vallée de Seine Logistique)”, specifies the director of the UPR, Pierre-Marie Hébert. To start legal action? “The future will tell us,” he said. Dockers and porters are expecting this initiative.
“These people are driving customers away and organizing the unemployment of tomorrow,” said Pierre-Marie Hébert, for whom the loss suffered by companies would amount to “hundreds of thousands of euros” or even “Probably millions”.
