The port of Algeciras, one of the busiest, was stopped yesterday from eight in the afternoon to two in the morning, due to the lack of stevedores on that shift to carry out the work. The activities resumed at two in the morning, according to sources close to El Mundo.

The port center of Algeciras "was unable yesterday at 8:00 pm to meet the request of the stevedoring companies of the Port of Algeciras due to the lack of availability of workers, despite having a total of 1,800 dockworkers on staff," says the Employment, which is the one that hires staff.

The airport terminal is the space where the containers are stored or handled. It is the terminals that hire the workers (who in the case of the ports are called stevedores) and who load and unload the merchandise from the ship.

For this reason, this absence of the workers yesterday afternoon "supposed the paralysis of the activity of the stow / undock" , they add. Sources close to the terminal indicate that the activity has resumed both last night, at two o'clock, and this morning, at the eight o'clock shift.

Key hub

Algeciras has heavy traffic, as it is a point where containers arrive from one ship and are loaded into another. Thanks to its strategic location, it is a kind of container hub .

According to the Port Employment Center, this lack of workers yesterday is due to the fact that "recently representatives of the workers and of the management of the stevedore companies have held meetings to establish the best operations at the Algeciras terminals and reduce the impact of their operations. "and also to discuss security measures against the coronavirus.

In the course of these meetings, always according to this source, the works council "has proposed the establishment of a plus or payable economic guarantee to the workers of the stowage during the validity of the state of alarm decreed by the Government."

The non-acceptance of this condition by the stevedore companies and the port employment center, which considered this request "a disloyalty with the exemplary behavior of other sectors that have been doing their work for long hours and in direct contact with the disease", yesterday led to "the stoppage of stowage activity in the container terminals of the port of Algeciras."

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