German Port Strike Set For Thursday

Port workers in Germany look likely to commence a 48-hour strike on Thursday as talks on wage negotiations appear to have broken down.

Around 12,000 port workers are expected to stop operations at the key container ports of Hamburg and Bremerhaven, along with four further German container ports.

While this will not be the first industrial action in this increasingly bitter dispute, if it goes ahead this will be the longest and largest German port strike for the past 40 years.

The ports are expected to halt operations at 06:00 hours on Thursday 14th July until 06:00 hours on Saturday 16th July.

The strike is unlikely to impact road transport services between the UK and Europe. However, it will undoubtedly add pressure to the already critical port congestion issues that are escalating throughout Northern European ports and further test ocean freight schedules.

On routes such as Asia, some services no longer call directly in the UK and cargo is transhipped over Northern European ports, which has contributed heavily to port congestion and delays to UK supply chains.

The team at Simarco will be monitoring the situation closely and will advise on any major developments.