ETUC Joins Hague Appeal Over the Non-Seafarers' Work Clause

A European legal dispute over whether ships' crews can be required to carry out cargo handling in port has widened, after the European Trade Union Confederation was allowed to intervene in an appeal before the Court of Appeal of The Hague.

The case centres on the International Transport Workers' Federation's Non-Seafarers' Work Clause, which prevents crew covered by relevant ITF agreements from performing cargo handling such as lashing and unlashing where qualified dock workers are available. The stated purpose of the clause is to protect the work and rest hours of seafarers by keeping port tasks with shore labour.

The ETUC's intervention aligns with the position of the ITF and its affiliated unions, which argue that seafarers are put at risk when cargo handling is added to their standard duties on top of watchkeeping and maintenance.

The Dutch court has ruled that preliminary questions on the clause will be referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The questions ask whether the clause breaches EU competition rules on the freedom of competition and, if it does, whether it is nevertheless justified by the fundamental freedom of collective bargaining.

That framing puts two bodies of European law directly against one another. Competition law treats agreements that allocate work between categories of undertaking with suspicion; collective labour law grants bargaining outcomes a degree of immunity from that scrutiny. Where the boundary falls has not been settled for a clause of this kind.

The commercial consequences run through terminal costs. Lashing and unlashing performed by crew is materially cheaper than shore labour, and in ports where the practice is permitted it forms part of the cost base on which schedules are built. A ruling either way would reset that base across European container terminals, and the rest and duty hours framework under the MLC is the standard against which any change would be measured.