ITF-affiliated dockers’ unions FNV of the Netherlands and UK based Unite have teamed up in a campaign to safeguard the role of dockworkers increasingly faced with competition from outside the profession. They want to reassert lashing as a dockers’ job and, in the process, protect jobs for young people coming into the industry. There have been concerns from both unions that lashing work on some short sea vessels is being done by seafarers who are forced into carrying out the task by shipping companies because they are cheaper than dockers. In other instances casual staff who are not trained dockers, are being used to carry out lashing and other work in the ports. Niek Stam, national secretary of FNV Bondgenoten dockers’ section said: "We will start a long standing campaign to take back our dockers’ jobs and protect our jobs in the ports. We have to. The Lisbon Agenda and the corporate greed of banks and multi nationals are forcing us to pick up the fight. It is about our future and the future of our kids". Julia Long of Unite added: “We’re supporting this campaign to protect dockers’ work. As more and more casualisation and agency work comes into ports, dockers’ work is put at greater risk so we need to act now to make sure these men and women don’t lose their livelihoods and that docking remains a profession.“ It’s not the only campaign Unite and FNV have worked jointly to promote recently. Unite backed the Dutch dockers when they protested outside a tennis tournament in Eastbourne, UK, last week over their pension struggle with insurance multinational Aegon. Find out more about the put the money back campaign here>> | 
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