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          Shipping Stevedoring Port Services Hydrocarbons Diving  May-Jun 2008 
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European port package safeguards ditchedPorts of Convenience threat03 October 2003Attempts to produce a compromise on the controversial package of port reform proposals have led to a shameful capitulation by the European Parliament, The International Transport Workers' Federation reports. The new text, drafted at a conciliation committee meeting of the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament in Brussels on 29 September, omits any provision of regulatory safeguards on the issue of selfhandling, without which the text becomes little more than a charter for port liberalisation. It will be presented to the European Parliament in November and will effectively open the door to de-skilled, low cost ports of convenience. Dock unions will now focus their efforts on a massive lobbying campaign aimed at MEPs. "We were already faced with a set of proposals which threatened jobs and safety standards. Now the few safeguards that were included have been taken away. This has not been a conciliation process it has been a capitulation process. Port workers will redouble their efforts to save their industry from these dangerous and misconceived proposals," said ITF Docks Section Secretary Kees Marges. The compromise was drafted on the same day that European dockers launched the largest ever single international port workers' demonstration, involving more than 8,000 workers, in Rotterdam recently. The demonstration was drawing attention to risks to the industry posed by the ports package.
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