KARACHI: The Minister for Ports and Shipping Mir Hasil Khan Bizenjo on Thursday held two meetings with dock labour and tried to convince them to call off the ‘go-slow’ at the Karachi Port, which entered its third day, official sources told Dawn.

The minister tried to assure the office bearers of the Karachi Dock Labour Board (KDLB) union that their genuine demands would be met but as a first step they would have to call off the go-slow strike, which has badly affected the port’s cargo handling and was also causing long delays in departure of vessels.

During the meetings with the minister the union leaders at one stage looked divided over the issue with some keen to call off the strike and others reluctant to oblige, sources said.

However, both meetings of the minister with union leaders remained inconclusive whereas there was constant rise in cargo congestion at the port as well as increase in number of vessels waiting off port.

Meanwhile, stevedores looking at the deteriorating condition at Karachi Port also planned to go on strike, but after holding a meeting with the minister they withdrew their strike call, sources said.

In a meeting with Stevedore Conference president Sabir Hasan and managing committee members of the conference, Mr Bizenjo assured them that genuine issues of all stakeholders would be resolved but the ‘illegal’ act of go-slow by dock labour had to stop first.

A KDLB union leader requesting anonymity told Dawn that the minister in Thursday’s meeting did assure them that ‘genuine’ demands of dock workers would be met, but did not come up with clear suggestions.

“Therefore, we as leaders of the dock labour also assured the minister to try to convince the workers to end the go-slow move.”

He further said that since the go-slow move by dock labour was never officially announced by the KDLB union, therefore, the minister was told to give them two to three days so that workers could be convinced to end the move.

He disclosed that a board meeting of the KDLB would be held on Friday, where the issue of go-slow would be taken up and efforts would be made to take a decision to bring an end to the strike.

A port user complained that due to the go-slow action the momentum of cargo handling slowed down, which was also delaying departure and berthing of vessels. He explained that a container vessel was being handled for loading and unloading of 600 containers in 24 to 36 hours but now the same has declined to 25 containers only.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2016