Port labour between conflicts and participation

There are no doubts about the drastic decreasing of the bargaining power of Dockworkers in the last years. No impact has been as devastating as the innovation introduced into the organization of labour within ports. The dimension of the maritime port cluster has been historically between the local interests and the global trade. The central question for trade unions of Dockworkers is therefore “how they engage with international market making and the politics of European Union” (Barton & Turnbull 2002). Both product and labour market outcomes are the result of social conflict between the principal actors within ports. How can we interpret the attempt of a Sectoral Social Dialogue for Ports, recently established? The dilemma, here, “is the focus on how workers must negotiate the unevenly developed geography of capitalism if they are to develop common cause with workers located elsewhere”. The spatial embeddedness of their work and the geographical contexts within which workers find themselves can have significant impacts on their political and economic behaviours. The analysis of working conditions’ within ports and the unions’ strategies allow us to assess the impact of globalization on labour. In this paper, I will focus on the European Social Dialogue for Ports through this attentiveness.