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Right before the beginning of the port workers strike yesterday, chaos took over the Pieria port when transport companies tried to unload their ships. Right at midnight the trade port Pieria “died” due to the previously announced 48 hour strike of the port employees. Despite the attempts of the transport companies to prevent the situation, 6000 containers remained blocked and the shipping companies were forced to cancel the departure of 15 ships until October 6.

The Port Employees Federation and the Pay-roll Port Employees Union will continue their strike through the weekend and during the elections and a new 48 hour strike was announced for October 5^th and 6^th. Their warning for the strike is from the beginning of September, when they requested the cancellation with the contract with the Chinese company Cosco, which from today takes over the management the Container Center in the biggest Greek port.

On October 6 both syndicate organizations of the port employees will have a meeting, in order to decide what actions to take in the future. Their only demand is for the government to “freeze” and cancel the agreement for the Container Center exploitation, which was signed between the Port of Pieria Organization and the Chinese transportation company Cosco.

As it seems after the elections the government will have to deal with this situation, because the port employees are determined to stick to their positions until they receive some guarantees. On the other hand, the Chinese company has signed a contract, which was approved by the Greek parliament, to use the center for the next 35 years and it had already deposited a guarantee of €50 million.

The protocol between the Pieria Port Organization and the Chinese company was not signed yesterday even though from today the management of the port technically is in the hands of Cosco. According to Naftemporiki newspaper, it was expected this protocol to be signed a bit after midnight so that the company can enter the Hong Kong stock exchange. Few days ago the Greek Ministry of Economy issued a temporary permission to the company, with which it can execute loading and unloading activities and it can issue invoices on its name. On Friday the Greek State Council will review the demands of the port workers, who want the Container Center to remain public and not private. The syndicate organizations of port workers blamed the port management that:

-       Illegally transfers the port staff to Cosco during a pre-election period.

-       Cosco has received temporary customs permission after paying a small guarantee.

-       The port management closed the port in advance in order to be able to give it in the hands of the Chinese company after some very quick procedures.

Earlier this month PASOK political representative on sailing subjects Elpida Tzouri said that her party “sentences” “the monopoly character of giving away the Container Center (the most profitable activity of the port) through problematic and probably illegal procedures, without allowing free and honest competition, without protecting trade, consumers, employees, pensioners’ rights and public interest.” Mrs. Tzouri added that PASOK will try to review the contract, aiming for it to be re-signed, in order for it to be in full public interest and to protect the workers’ rights. On the other hand the leftist coalition SIRIZA announced its position on the subject as well and said that the agreement with Cosco should not be reviewed but suspended, because the port has to be owned 100% by the state.