Abidjan – A strike by dockers paralysed the main port in Abidjan on Friday before their union suspended the industrial action in the evening claiming to have made “real progress” in obtaining improved working conditions.
The strike had started at midnight Thursday at the main port in Abidjan, through which most of Ivory Coast’s imports and exports pass, and at the second port in San Pedro in the southwest of the West African nation.
The dockers were demanding the implementation of a government decree issued in January 2019 improving their labour conditions, their spokesman Jonas Yapi said.
Some dockers have commented in local media that they earn 25 000 CFA francs ($43, 38 euros) per month.
ALSO READ | Ivory Coast dockers stike paralyses Abidjan port
The strike action was suspended late Friday following a meeting between trade unionists and the Abidjan port’s general management, the transport ministry and the labour inspectorate.
The striking dockers obtained “real progress on all” of their demands, according to a statement by the Ivory Coast National Federation of Dockers (Fenad-CI).
Fenad-CI “suspends the strike and therefore asks all dockers.. to resume work, from this moment,” the statement said.
The port of Abidjan handles 90 percent of Ivory Coast’s foreign trade and is also an important trade route for nearby countries that don’t have direct maritime access like Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.
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Source: AFP
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