Panama’s Manzanillo terminal working to restore service levels

Operations at the Atlantic terminal, which is the second largest in the country, had been disrupted since 13 November by an illegal strike.

The apparent reason for the illegal workout dates back to last July when a group of workers, members of the MIT’s union (SITRAMIT) claimed that over-time pay was not being calculated accurately, although the same payroll process has been in place since 1995. The Ministry of Labour has conducted two audits and issued a ruling in MIT’s favour on 30 October, considering the workers’ claims to be unjustified.

Port executives and representatives of the labour force met Tuesday at the Ministry of Labour and “represents the first step of several in the bargaining process,” MIT gm Stacy Hatfield told Seatrade Global.

“MIT is working at full strength, but delays are expected and operational efficiency has not returned to 100% due to the backlog caused by the illegal strike,” added Hatfield.

“The supply of outsourced labour gives us the ability to continue working but performance level is not as high as historical standards. Similar to vessel operations, we have secured enough outsourced labour to guarantee continuity with the gate operations and working to clear backlog of approximately 900 import containers,” explained Hatfield.

Fourteen vessels omitted calls to MIT due to this illegal strike.

Last year, the Pacific terminal of Balboa, a subsidiary of Hutchison Ports Holdings saw its activities stopped by a two-week strike that affected cargo movements but also the image of Panamanian ports in the region, according to shipping executives.

“Whenever a disruption to Panamanian ports occurs, several vessels are deviated to other ports in neighboring countries affecting the volume and creating a very difficult environment to get these cargoes back to the system. What we call the Panama Product becomes tarnish with these events and polishing it is not easy afterwards, what has taken years to build is rapidly vanished by these actions. We hope for a prompt solution to this problem and expect that we can avoid situations like this happening again,” commented Panama Chamber of Shipping president Willys Delvalle.

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