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    APM Terminals to shut station at Nava Sheva after violence

    Synopsis

    The facility will be shut down Thursday night, said Ajit Venkataraman, managing director for inland services south Asia, where APM’s CFS business is housed.

    Retrenched contract workers at APM Terminals vandalising employee coaches
    MUMBAI: APM Terminals, part of the container shipping behemoth AP Moller-Maersk Group, will shut down one of its container freight stations (CFS) at Mumbai’s Nava Sheva port after two recent incidents of violence by retrenched workers, and daily threats of more.

    The facility will be shut down Thursday night, said Ajit Venkataraman, managing director for inland services south Asia, where APM’s CFS business is housed.

    The closure will affect 500 contractual workers, giving rise to concerns over further violence. This is one of the two facilities at Nava Sheva, Venkataraman said. Talking to ET, he did not rule out “necessary action on the second one” if things were to get out of hand. Nava Sheva is India’s biggest container operating port. APM has 7 CFS facilities across the country.

    CFS is a facility wherein freight shipments are consolidated or de-consolidated and stocked between transport legs.

    In February this year, APM Terminals decided to retrench 99 contract workers at the facility to streamline business and as part of overall cost cutting measures.

    “There are a lot of changes happening in the business environment. There is Direct Port Delivery…. Customers are asking for much more value. We had to make sure our costs are sustained as well,” said Venkataraman, explaining the rationale behind the layoffs. “Business in general has also been decreasing in that area. The cost structure was no longer sustainable: So we had to take some corrective actions.”

    Direct Port Delivery (DPD) is a global cargo clearance method, and is mandated by the Indian government in Nava Sheva last year. In this, cargo is transferred straight from the terminal to the place of delivery, instead of initially holding the goods at a container freight station.

    On August 3, a bus carrying 17 employees of the CFS was stopped. The employees were pulled out, and allegedly manhandled by a group of retrenched workers. They were threatened with more violence if they showed up at work.

    APM appealed to the local police and got protection.

    On September 10, a mob of 50 allegedly disgruntled workers and their family members pelted stones at a bus that had employees and a policeman inside. A video footage accessed by ET showed women pelting stones at the coach, breaking its windshield, while one other individual got inside and pulled the driver out. Another shot showed a vehicle with a policeman being pelted with stones.

    The violence prompted the decision to shut down the facility, given that “the safety of employees was at stake,” said Venkataraman.

    To be sure, the CFS business, especially in Nava Sheva, has seen a significant decline after the enforcement of DPD. The aggressive enforcement had initially met with significant opposition from CFS operators across the country over businesses concerns. DPD, however, is a globally prevalent practice and cuts cargo dwell times considerably.

    The company has taken other cost-cutting measures, too. Last year, APM Terminals gave pink slips to 40 employees at a container repair facility in Panvel. A case on the layoffs has been registered in the local labour court.

    Local politician Mahesh Baldi, who has reportedly been linked to the Nava Sheva protests, denied his involvement when ET reached out to him. He said he has only been extending “legal support” to the affected workers.

    “These are poor labourers who have given two decades to the company. Before that, APM sacked 40 of its own employees. We will definitely support them as much as we can. We have helped APM settle labour disputes in the past. But this is not done. Retrenchment isn’t the only way to cut costs,” Baldi said.

    If the facility were to be shut down and more workers rendered unemployed, “necessary steps” would be taken but “within legal boundaries,” Baldi said.


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    ( Originally published on Sep 27, 2018 )
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