1. The dock worker: registered or precarious?
Isabelle Van Hiel
Department of Criminology, Penal Law and Social Law
University of Ghent

2. Origins of the pool system
What?
Registration required for loading and unloading goods in ports
Priority of registered dock workers for employment
Often on the basis of collective agreements
Why?
Keep growth of dock workers in line with growth in port demand
Give dock workers sufficient guarantees of employment and income

3. ILO Convention n° 137 Registration + priority for employment
Not many ratifications
EU: Finland, France, Italy, Netherlands (until 2006), Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, Sweden
System already contested at the time (1973)
Instrument with interim status – technical convention
Link with ILO Convention n° 152 on health and safety (1979)

4. Pool system under pressure
Technological innovation
New capital-intensive cargo-handling methods
Need for skilled (permanent) dock workers
Liberalisation of ports
Focus on efficiency
Pool system is deemed to be rigid and of high cost
Ship-owners want to use their own staff to load and unload ships (“self-handling”)

5. Legal challenges: Council of Europe
ECSR has questioned certain aspects of pool system
Compulsory trade union membership
Closed shop contrary to negative freedom of association
Conclusions with regard to France and Belgium
XIII-1/2/3/4, XIV-1, XV-1
Collective complaint is pending: no. 103/2013, Bedriftsforbundet v Norway

6. Legal challenges: EU
EU Commission insists on market access to port services
EU Parliament blocked 2 draft directives in 2003 and 2006
New strategy: infraction procedures before ECJEU
Commission/Spain 11 December 2014, C-576/13
Pool system infringement on freedom of establishment
Belgium is negotiating with Commission and social partners

7. Legal challenges: EEA EFTA Court judgment of April 19, 2016
Norwegian pool system
Registration + priority for dock work
On the basis of a collective agreement
Boycot to compel employer to respect collective agreement
Legality accepted in national law
Referral by Supreme Court

8. Legal challenges: EEA Intervention by EU Commission
No exemption from competition law for collective agreements with priority of engagement rules
Boycot to procure acceptance constitutes a restriction on the freedom of establishment
Only very small margin of interpretation left to national courts
EEA law prevails on ILO Conventions
= Right of employer to chose his staff

9. A happy ending …
Society protected against the ‘aggregate’ effects of collective agreements
Infringement procedures used for policy objectives
Liberalise port services
Discipline dock workers
Minimise trade union involvement
Back to precariousness?
Pool system replaced by temporary agency work?