German Port Strike Deepens Congestion Already Holding 160,000 TEU at Anchor
About 11,000 workers walked out across six North Sea ports as Dutch terminals stopped for eight hours
A rolling wave of industrial action across northern Europe has landed on top of an already severe bout of port congestion, with German dockworkers out for 48 hours before workers at Rotterdam and other Dutch ports stopped handling ships.
Around 11,000 workers at Germany's North Sea ports were called out for a 48-hour warning strike covering Hamburg, Bremerhaven, Bremen, Wilhelmshaven, Emden and Brake. The action started with Wednesday night shifts and ran through Friday, as ver.di escalated a wage dispute after workers rejected an employers' offer including a 5.1% increase. The union is seeking 8.2%. A previous 24-hour stoppage on 18 August substantially slowed or halted cargo operations across the same ports.
The German stoppage ended just as another began across the border. On 4 September, workers at Rotterdam, Amsterdam and ports in Zeeland stopped handling ships between 11.15am and 7pm as part of a wider protest against Dutch government plans to cut social security spending. The FNV union said loading, unloading, lashing, towage and cargo inspections were all affected. That action is covered in the Dutch stoppage.
The timing is awkward for container shipping because the region has no slack to absorb it. Linerlytica estimated that more than 160,000 TEU of containership capacity was waiting at anchor outside Rotterdam, Hamburg and Bremerhaven at the end of the preceding week, with all three among the world's most congested ports. Globally, congestion and delays are soaking up around 1.7m TEU, equivalent to about 5% of deepsea containership capacity. On the transatlantic, where northern European congestion has been particularly acute, schedule reliability has stayed below 50% for much of the year.
Clearing a backlog generated in Dutch ports may prove difficult. On 9 September, FNV called a separate 24-hour nationwide transport strike involving ProRail and DB Cargo as well as passenger operators, which removes an important escape valve for boxes moving into and out of Rotterdam. When quay operations resume but the rail and barge legs behind them do not, containers accumulate on the terminal rather than leaving it, and the berth productivity recovered on paper is not recovered in practice.
The two disputes are unrelated in substance. The German action is a straightforward wage negotiation, while the Dutch stoppages are political, aimed at national plans to reduce social security spending. Their effect on the box market is the same, and it compounds: capacity waiting at anchor is capacity withdrawn from a trade that is already short of it, and the freight indices have been moving accordingly.
