Wildcat strike shuts Calais
Ferry services in chaos as workers blockade French port and all services cancelled
A WILDCAT strike by ferry workers from MyFerryLink has closed the port of Calais today and hit rail services in the Channel Tunnel.
The strike came just after Eurotunnel announced that it had accepted the deal offered by DFDS to lease and then buy the ferries that MyFerryLink uses on the Dover-Calais route.
Ferry workers have blockaded the port, forcing it to close until at least 20.00 tonight. All Dover-Calais ferry services have been suspended until then.
Large queues of traffic have built up on both sides of the Channel with the M20 already badly affected by an earlier road accident. The A16 had 9km of traffic jammed mid-morning.
MyFerryLink has cancelled all its services and DFDS says that booked passengers will be transported via its Dover-Dunkirk route.
P&O has advised customers with non-urgent bookings to look at travelling on another date. It cannot organise replacement services quickly as four of its five ferries are stuck inside the Calais blockade.
All MFL services are currently cancelled due to industrial action. We apologise to all customers for inconvenience caused.— MyFerryLink (@MyFerryLink) June 23, 2015
MyFerryLink staff are employed by the Scop-SeaFrance workers’ cooperative but DFDS has still not said how many it will hire – or if it will hire any. The Scop is in administration and DFDS said in a statement it would “constructively participate” as the administrators sell its assets.
Eurotunnel said in a statement last night that DFDS will make “personnel recovery proposals” tomorrow.
Union members from Syndicat Maritime Nord, the main union in the Scop, have said they blockaded the port and the Channel Tunnel access to “have our voices heard”.
A spokesman promised La Voix du Nord a “hot summer” if they were ignored.
Eurotunnel says it has been forced to sell the two ferries after the UK monopolies watchdog CMA ordered the MyFerryLink Dover-Calais service to close as it gave Eurotunnel a stranglehold on the route.
Calais blockade update: pic.twitter.com/m4ZzdZ7dOv— P&O Ferries (@POferries) June 23, 2015
