Grain terminal strike costing Mumbai port
A month-old strike of workers at a rail yard serving a grain depot in Mumbai has cost the Port of Mumbai roughly $500,000, the Economic Times reported Wednesday.
The strike is being driven by an improbably complex political fight involving two labor unions — one old and one new — and two government parties — one the controlling party in the state of Maharashtra and one the controlling party in India's national government — over who has the right to work in the yard. With both unions calling off their joint 200-plus workers, the result is that grain movement through the port has ground to a halt.
Negotiations between the unions and the two parties on July 7 led to an order for the 66 workers in the new union to join the older union, but that order has so far been ignored.
The Port of Mumbai is a multiuse port that specializes in commodities and is not to be confused with the nearby Jawarhalal Nehru Port, India's busiest container port.
