The French dockworker union CGT on Monday suspended a 48-hour strike planned to start at midnight after the government offered to discuss its controversial proposals to reform state-owned ports.

Rail workers, however, will proceed with a 36-hour stoppage starting at 8 a.m. Tuesday that is expected to slow the movements of ocean containers at France’s top two container ports, Le Havre and Marseilles.

Dockworker representatives met Monday with Dominique Bussereau, secretary of state for transport minister, to negotiate the terms of the planned port reform at seven of the country’s nine publicly owned ports.

The CGT union, which represents the majority of French longshoremen, has denounced the reforms, which call for the privatization of stevedoring and the transfer of dockworkers currently employed by port authorities to the private sector.

The union said it favors a negotiated settlement over the reform but condemned transferring terminal operations to private companies as “absurd and counterproductive.”

The government says it will not back down. It says the reforms are essential to improve French ports’ competitiveness and to help boost their annual container traffic from 3.6 million TEUs to 10 million TEUs by 2015.

The seven public ports slated for reform are: Le Havre, Marseilles, Dunkirk, Rouen, Nantes-St.Nazaire, Bordeaux and La Rochelle.

By: Bruce Barnard