Freedom to hire dockworkers in Spanish ports

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1. Hiring workers for cargo handling in ports becomes free. Companies are no longer required to hold shares in the SAGEPSAGEP Sociedad Anónima de Gestión de Estibadores Portuarios: a company that supplies dockworkers to port companies. companies or to give priority to their workers, although they must guarantee the professionalism of those who work.
2. A professional certificate, with practical training in port facilities, is required to work in cargo handling. Workers who prove more than 100 working days in this service in any European Union country, and ship crew performing these tasks on board in permitted cases, are exempt.
3. Port employment centers may be created. They work as temporary work agencies for the sector: they employ dockworkers, train them and temporarily assign them to companies. They need the authorization required for temporary work agencies, and stevedoring companies are not required to take part in them.
4. Collective agreements have one year to adapt to the new law. If they do not, clauses that restrict hiring freedom or limit competition will be null and void. Workers may terminate their contract with compensation if the change in the agreement causes them substantial harm.
5. A three-year transition period is set, during which the SAGEP companies may continue to exist. During that time, licensed companies must cover 75 percent of their activity with SAGEP workers in the first year, 50 percent in the second and 25 percent in the third. After that, remaining SAGEP companies must operate as temporary work agencies.
6. The port administration assumes the compensation for terminating contracts of SAGEP workers in force before December 11, 2014, to level the playing field between established and new companies. This measure will not take effect until the European Commission declares it compatible with state aid rules.

Who it affects

• Stevedoring companies and port license holders: They are no longer required to hold shares in the SAGEP companies or to give priority to their workers, and can hire freely.
• Port and dock workers: They need the professional certificate; those with a SAGEP contract keep their regime during the transition and may terminate with compensation if they suffer substantial harm.
• SAGEP companies: They may survive for three years and then continue as temporary work agencies or be dissolved.
• Port authorities: They assume compensation for terminating contracts of SAGEP workers from before December 11, 2014.
• Unions and employers in the sector: They have one year to adapt collective agreements to the new law.

Words worth knowing

SAGEP

Sociedad Anónima de Gestión de Estibadores Portuarios: a company that supplies dockworkers to port companies.

Estiba

The work of loading, unloading, stowing and securing cargo on ships.

Centro portuario de empleo (CPE)

Port employment center: a company that hires dockworkers and temporarily assigns them to port companies, like a temporary work agency.

Empresa de trabajo temporal

Temporary work agency: a company that hires workers and assigns them temporarily to other companies.

Convenio colectivo

Collective agreement: a deal negotiated by unions and employers that sets working conditions for a sector.

It summarizes the law as published in the BOE. It is written by artificial intelligence and may contain mistakes: the official text is what counts. Read the official text · How we make summaries