UDS moves to a 6-hour working day due to the transportation crisis on the Danube

The Ukrainian Danube shipping company is forced to switch to a 6-hour working day in order to cut costs due to the transportation crisis.

Due to the aggravation of the crisis on the Danube river transport market, the company is forced to shorten the working day, the UDS reported.

The main reasons for reducing the length of the working day:

• lack of support for the Danube export direction (the Danube ports can compete with the ports of Great Odesa, but for this it is necessary to introduce a discount for railway transportation to Izmail);

• abnormal heat and shallowing: shallow water on the Middle Danube makes it difficult for barge caravans to move;

• agrarians lost part of the harvest due to the heat — as a result, the volume of exported agricultural products decreased.

The UDS noted that their private competitors have the same difficulty, but they can work without social obligations, with a minimum number of people recruited under a contract, and often without paying taxes.

Under today’s conditions, the UDS fleet cannot support more than a thousand people. The company decided to start optimizing work by suspending all investment projects, except for modernization. Financing of the latter is targeted. This year, the Cabinet of Ministers reduced the share of dividends that the UDS had to deduct from the budget. The condition is to direct the funds left to the shipping industry for the modernization and construction of the fleet.

The UDS will form a working group with the primary union this week and begin seeking a compromise on reducing personnel costs, which currently account for 70% of the company’s total overhead costs. With the approval of the trade union, the shipping industry has already temporarily switched to a 6-hour working day. Also, the number of people in the commercial service was reduced several times.

Previously, USM reported that the UDS will initiate the cancellation of the postponement of mobilization for certain employees.