By: Ralf Johanning

Many port labourers had to go hunting for a day’s work in bygone ages. Day labourers gathered anywhere a port company was looking for workers. For many of them it was an insecure profession without social protections, holidays or health insurance. But all of this changed with the establishment of the Gesamthafenbetrieb (GHB) in Hamburg. “GHB is a unique construct for creating permanent working arrangements for dockworkers at the Port of Hamburg. GHB is managed by an Executive Board with equal numbers of representatives from the Port of Hamburg Business Association and the ver.di trade union. "The GHB statutes issued by the Executive Board ensure equal status for all employees in the individual port companies and at GHB itself, as Gesamthafen workers belong to the workforce of the individual port companies and are vested with all rights and obligations while working at these establishments”, says Martin Pieper, Managing Director of GHB. This put an end to the age in which day labourers were called to work by loudspeakers and radio announcements.

Flexible Assignments

Around 1,000 people work at GHB today. Verena Witt is one of the highly qualified and flexible employees. Like many others, she joined GHB when she switched career. “I trained as a confectioner and then worked in retail for a while. But I always wanted to go to work at the Port of Hamburg, even as a child”, says Verena Witt. The moment finally arrived in 2007 – Verena Witt had the opportunity to join GHB and has remained there every since.

She is currently a member of the works council and occasionally misses the good teamwork with her permanent colleagues in the individual port companies at the terminals. At the same time, Verena Witt has observed in her work a certain degree of uncertainty among colleagues. “Many people are uncertain what to expect in the current transformation process towards more automation and digitalisation. We cooperate with management to provide people with as much information as we can. But information alone is not enough, so we cooperate closely to create a deeper understanding of the upcoming changes”, says Witt.

The call of the future

Official support is available as well. After all, GHB is determined to play an active role in shaping the transformation process in the world of work. “Without highly qualified personnel, individual port companies would struggle to keep up with the stiff international competition. What matters now is to actively shape these developments. GHB is receiving support from partner employers and employee organisations to respond to this change. It is therefore all the more valuable that our oversight bodies, ver.di and the Port of Hamburg Business Association, have reaffirmed their commitment and stand by GHB”, emphasises Pieper.

GHB is working with employers and employees to identify the needs of future job profiles, develop appropriate training programmes and adapt them to modern requirements. Active adaptation is also welcomed by employees. “Regular and additional qualifications and training measures will be necessary to ensure that our colleagues continue to enjoy good opportunities on the labour market and can be deployed by the individual port companies. Here at GHB, we are therefore delighted to continue working on our own transformation and secure a more positive position going forward”, says Maik Pulter, Chair of the GHB Works Council.

The degree of human-machine interaction is experiencing sweeping changes in many port professions. This applies not only in container throughput, but also to all other port operations, although the rate of change may vary. Moreover, the establishment of a Sustainable Energy Hub is transforming the strategic alignment at the port. For GHB as a personnel service provider, this meant identifying new job families at a theoretical level and defining Handling of large project cargo requires meticulous preparation.

the requisite tasks. GHB has already developed new profiles for port administrators, conventional lashers and bulk cargo specialists. Other profiles such as for harbour technician and tank storage specialists are planned for the future. Naturally, these new tasks are part of the port work set out in the GHB statutes.

Digital training

GHB is collaborating closely with the maritime competence centre (ma-co), the training provider for German seaports, to develop additional training modules and courses, while ma-co and other port partners have launched the IHATEC Port Skills 4.0 project to identify job families and skills that port workers should master going forward. “Workflows will continue to evolve with progressive digitalisation and automation. Scheduling and monitoring activities will become increasingly important in the port sector. This has prompted us to modernise our portfolio of training courses in precisely this area”, explains Pieper. GHB has participated in a simulator for the remote control of container gantry cranes as part of its cooperation with maco.

„Workflows will
continue to evolve
with progressive
digitalisation and
automation."

Martin Pieper
Managing Director of GHB

The personnel service provider has digitalised its own workflows as another vital step towards improved service delivery to its customers. GHB is seeking to create a web-based B2B platform as part of its Port Connect project. It will be designed to facilitate data exchange for customers without a direct interface connection. The focus will be on ordering labour and on recording payroll data, invoices and statistics that customers will be able to access from a central repository. In addition, applications powered by artificial intelligence will be used to decide on the rosters for dockworkers in order to continue improvements at the Port of Hamburg.

Personnel itself is another of the key areas. The employee app is designed to facilitate communication between Gesamthafen employees and the administrative departments (administrative unit). This will automate a large number of processes and make them easier to understand. “The app will enable us to contact our commercial colleagues in a depth and frequency that we have never achieved before. It has been well received by our workers as well. App usage is now at 95 percent”, Pieper reports.

The personnel service provider is more modern and fresher than ever before on the 75th anniversary of federal act creating the GHB. The new measures introduced at GHB will qualify employees to cope with new requirements and hence create genuine job security. At the same time, GHB is establishing fresh structures to embrace the digital age and protect its position as the silent champion of the entire port in the decades ahead.

Structure of the Gesamthafenbetrieb

GHB was founded in its current form on the basis of a federal law from 1950. This applies also to the joint responsibility of ver.di and the Port of Hamburg Business Association. A charter regulates port work and regional responsibility for the Port of Hamburg. The equal status of ver.di and the port sector are reflected on the Executive Board as well. It consists of nine members, with four representatives each from the port sector and the trade union and a neutral chairperson. Shareholders in the established administrative unit (Gesamthafenbetriebs- Gesellschaft m.b.H. – GHBG) are the Port of Hamburg Business Association with over 90 percent and the Port Shipping Association with just under 10 percent. But the shareholders do not have a direct right to issue instructions to GHB in their capacity as the responsible body. Around 30 employees work in the Hamburg administrative unit.

The personnel service provider occupies a strong competitive position – defined by law – for throughputs in the operational areas of the port. To this end, GHB provides a pool of industrial port workers to cushion short and medium- term fluctuations in workforce at the individual port companies. GHB has the right to provide personnel in this defined area.

GHB is a non-profit organisation. GHB is financed by its customers, who are charged an overhead rate in addition to the collectively agreed wages, which includes all non-productive costs such as holidays and holiday pay. Employees who are not deployed at an individual port company on a particular day receive payment from the port fund. In turn, this fund receives its financing from a small percentage of the port throughput revenues.

The Gesamthafenbetrieb (GHB) operates in Hamburg, Bremen/ Bremerhaven and Rostock.