The port re-opened the next day, replacing the detained members of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de Japdeva y Afines Portuarios (SINTRAJAP) with strikebreakers, some of them from nearby countries.
The dispute arose over the 33-year, US$1 billion expansion deal won by APM to run a new terminal, which has been the subject of a legal battle because the APM negotiated the exclusive right to handle containers, threatening the future in the two terminals of the state-owned port company Japdeva.
Japdeva has an explicit role as a regional economic development engine, helping to fund education and health services.
The union has won significant support at home, with other workers and the local community fearing the loss of Japdeva’s much-needed public sector income and the potentially damaging environmental impact of the new facility.
Paddy Crumlin, ITF president and chair of the ITF dockers’ section, said: “This is another example of profit coming first, with governments putting effort – and violent effort – into attacking the public sector. “The ITF is urging all our port unions to fight this, and they will. They’ll be reminded of the heavy-handed tactics used by the Australian government during the infamous Patrick’s Dispute fifteen years ago.”
ITF regional secretary Antonio Rodriguez Fritz commented that all the union members wanted was proper observance of the law, security for existing jobs and protection of their community, and that dock workers throughout the region fully supported them. View Costa Rican TV news footage of the attacks.
