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Dockers

We’re doing the heavy lifting, making dockers’ jobs safe, secure and sustainable.

For hundreds of years, dock workers have done the heavy lifting to keep the world moving. Dockers provide a critical link in global supply chains, loading and unloading cargo in the world’s docks, ports and wharves. In today’s globalised economy dockers handle 90% of international trade in an industry dominated by a handful of global port giants.

ISSUES

Privatisation and market consolidation in the port and wider logistics chain, and global supply chain shocks, have enabled stevedoring companies to rake in record profits. At the same time, the lives and livelihoods of dockers and other maritime workers are being put at risk by cost-cutting, casualisation, sub-contracting, automation and the erosion of safety and labour standards across the industry. The ITF Dockers’ Section is tackling the key issues facing our industry and campaigning globally against those who fail to protect the lives and rights of dockers.

OUR PRIORITIES

  • ACCOUNTABILITY

  • SAFETY

  • FUTURE OF WORK

  • EQUALITY

  • ORGANISING

  • INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS

 

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WHAT WE DO

The ITF’s Dockers’ Section campaigns globally to secure and improve the safety, rights and labour standards of port workers globally. We do this by:

  • Engaging with the major global network terminal operators including APM Terminal, Bolloré, DP World, Hutchison Port Holdings, PSA International and others to set and raise standards globally and engage companies on solutions for joint challenges and priorities.
  • Organising and campaigning locally, regionally and globally to build industrial power to secure collective bargaining agreements, regional framework agreements and transnational agreements.
  • Shining a spotlight on any attack on dockers’ fundamental rights and holding employers, governments, investors and companies accountable for ensuring decent work, fundamental labour rights and genuine social protections for dockers worldwide.
  • Representing dockers in global collective bargaining, engaging with and influencing international policy institutions including the ILO and IMO, and industry bodies like ICHCA to raise key issues facing dockers across automation and digitalisation, health and safety and sustainability.
  • Leveraging our global strength to stand in solidarity with unions and dockers under attack – from attacks on workers’ fundamental right to join trade unions, attack the right to strike and the growing threats of automation, outsourcing and other new forms of employment that are putting workers’ lives and communities’ livelihoods at risk.
WHERE WE FOCUS

Through organising, campaigning, negotiating and training, the ITF and dock workers unions globally are strengthening union capacity to shift power from capital to workers.

The Dockers’ Section strategy focuses on key issues that matter for port workers around the globe, including:

  • Occupational safety and health - we’re researching fatalities and serious injuries, developing training programs like the “Be more than a bystander’ program and safety apps for workers, through to engaging and working with global network terminal operators, industry working groups and governments on raising safety standards across the industry.
  • Future of Work - we’re presenting the facts and drawing the attention of employers, governments and investors to the negative impacts that automation and digitalisation pose to the safety and livelihoods of workers and their communities, and to port productivity and local and national economies.
  • Expanding union density and diversity - organising globally and regionally to support dockers’ unions to grow, to remove structural barriers and make the industry attractive to women and young workers, and to develop capacity to campaign and bargain.
ON THE GROUND
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The latest news on the issues affecting us all, and the actions we’re taking to improve our workers' lives and futures.
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Mohan Aswani

It is with deep sadness that the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) announces the passing of Mohan Aswani on 12 September 2024. Brother Aswani was a revered leader within the Indian
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OUR PEOPLE

Our Dockers' Section Committee brings together a diversity of dockers’ representatives from across the world working to advance the rights of dockers’ and transport workers worldwide.

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SECTION COORDINATOR

Enrico Tortolano

 

SENIOR ASSISTANT

Steve Biggs

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SECTION COMMITTEE

Paddy Crumlin

MUA
,
Australia
Chair

Willie Adams

ILWU
,
United States of America
1st Vice Chair

Niek Stam

FNV
,
Netherlands
2nd Vice Chair

Monique Verbeeck

BTB
,
Belgium
Dockers

Viri Gómez

ILWU
,
Canada
Young Transport Workers’ Co-Representative

Nick Loridan

BTB
,
Belgium
Young Transport Workers’ Co-Representative
AFRICA

Jackie Doe

DOWUL
,
Liberia
Chair

Gladys Chepkorir

DWU
,
Kenya
Ordinary member

Phillipe Djoula

USYTZPOG
,
Gabon
Ordinary member
ARAB WORLD

Mahmoud Mansour Edbeis

GUPW
,
Jordan
Chair

Salman Al Saad

GFBTU
,
State of Bahrain
Ordinary Member
ASIA/PACIFIC

Sang Sik Kim

KFPTWU
,
Korea
Chair

Arasu Duaraisamy

SPWU
,
Singapore
Ordinary member

Craig Harrison

MUNZ
,
New Zealand
Ordinary member

Kimihiro Kashiwagi

Zenkoku-Kowan
,
Japan
Ordinary member

PM Mohammed Haneef

CPSA
,
India
Ordinary member
EUROPE (ETF MARITIME TRANSPORT SECTION)

Terje Fenn-Samuelsen

NTF
,
Norway
Chair

Marc Loridan

BTB
,
Belgium
Ordinary member

Mark Hughes

UNITE
,
Great Britain
Ordinary member

Aleksejs Holudnuks

UTAF
,
Latvia
Ordinary member

Maya Schwiegershausen-Güth

Ver.di
,
Germany
Regional representative

Jose Manuel Perez–Vega

SMC UGT
,
Spain
Ordinary member
LATIN AMERICA/ CARIBBEAN

José Adilson Pereira

CONTTMAF
,
Brazil
Chair

Roberto Coria

SGYMGMRA
,
Argentina
Ordinary member

Guillermo Honeros

SUTRAPMT CALLAO
,
Peru
Ordinary member

Frederica Riley

WAWU
,
Dominica
Ordinary member
NORTH AMERICA

John Baker

ILA
,
United States of America
Chair

Rob Ashton

ILWU
,
Canada
Ordinary member
OUR AFFILIATES

We speak with a single, united voice, supporting dockers and our affiliated unions globally in order to build workers’ power that secures a fairer and safer workplace for dockers.

GMB

22 Stephenson Way
London
NW1 2HD
Great Britain
http://www.gmb.org.uk

Port Officers' Union

1 HARBOUR DRIVE PSA HORIZONS SINGAPORE 117352
Singapore
117352
Singapore
http://www.pou.org.sg