Real risk of port paralysis for oceanic maritime trade
The chimera of the paralysis of Australian ports risks becoming a reality to be addressed immediately: port trade in Australia it is in fact threatened by a series of large numbers strikes proclaimed by Maritime Union of Australia.
The reason? At stake is the work contract, and the strikes have the objective of soliciting the terminal operator Patrick Terminals to a renewal expected for over a year and a half now.
The situation is extremely serious: nearly half of Australia's commercial maritime traffic it necessarily passes through Patrick Terminals with the ports of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Fremantle to dominate the scene.
The developments
The strike has actually already started, and the trade union dispute in progress does not bode well in terms of timing, although the Patrick Terminals apparently travels in the direction of the requests made by the workers to the trade unions: the dispute, in any case, would concern, in addition to wages and of renewals, also the conditions of safety extremely precarious to which the workers of the terminal operator are subjected.
Hundreds of workers went on strike for 48 hours last weekend.
In addition, there will be a 12-hour strike every Monday, Wednesday and Friday throughout the month of October in Melbourne.
Le consequences of this massive stance they risk being truly devastating; let's see them together.
The consequences
We assume that the situation is already in itself a compromised and cumbersome situation due to thesanitary emergency in progress that precludes a series of actions and that has brought many Australian companies to their knees. The discomfort derived therefore from the combined action of logistic problems connected precisely with the Covid emergency, in addition to the explosion of online purchases (and related home deliveries) it could worsen further with the addition of strike that the dockers even threaten to carry on until the Christmas period.
So there could be huge delays in the delivery of products such as toys, furniture, electronics and construction materials, with devastating consequences for the economy and with a probable significant increase in product prices.
The solution? Resolve the stalemate and turmoil as soon as possible, or rush to purchase essential goods for the next few months to avoid further economic collapse in Australia.
Keep following the blog Buonefra, in the coming weeks we will follow the developments and we will keep you updated on the Australian case and on what is happening in the port landscape in Italy and in the world.
