St. Kitts longshore talks stalled

St. Kitts longshore talks stalled Talks with St. Kitts dockworkers about future pay structures have reportedly reached an impasse, with the situation growing testy when a ships agent called in police to request that stevedores leave a vessel they were working late last week.
   According to reports in the Sun St. Kitts/Nevis newspaper, the situation escalated while stevedores were working a vessel Thursday night.
   The report said that at a Friday press conference, St. Kitts-based ship's agent S.L. Horsford & Co. Ltd., which was overseeing the unloading and loading of a Bernuth Line vessel the previous night, claimed that stevedores stopped work. That prompted the agent to call in police to get the workers to leave the vessel.
   The newspaper said the Stevedoring Association of St. Kitts offered a different account of the event, with union leader Ian 'Patches' Liburd claiming the stevedores were engaging in a 'go slow' practice to protest the impasse in pay scheme talks. He said that when police arrived the workers left the vessel in an orderly fashion. He added that a false claim had been leveled that stevedores had been behaving in an unruly fashion, with reports escalating to the point there were claims of a riot at the port.
   The events at the end of the week followed a brief strike on Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning. The stevedores started a strike action after talks about the pay scheme were halted Tuesday. They returned to work when the two sides agreed to resume talks Wednesday afternoon.
   Liburd said the talks have not resumed, however, adding that the speed with which stevedores work vessels will mirror the speed with which the two side attempt to negotiate an agreement.
   The shipping association has offered workers pay hikes over three years, with a 20 percent increase the first year and another 10 percent added the following two years.
   The union wants a fundamental change in the way stevedores are paid, with a change to a 'tonnage scheme' rather than an hourly wage, the reports said.