The stevedoring at the Port of Algeciras faces a new restructuring of its workforce with a preliminary agreement between the Port Employment Center (CPE), the companies in the sector, and union representation to convert the contracts of more than 450 workers, who until now were considered fixed-discontinuous, into permanent full-time contracts. The date set to implement this change is June 1, 2026, according to information conveyed to the workforce after several weeks of negotiations.
The agreement affects the group of professionals who entered the port activity as temporary staff and who, over the years, have been incorporated into the stable employment structure in the Algeciras enclave. Their situation had already changed in March 2025, when around 460 workers from the temporary pool managed by Adecco began to integrate into the CPE as fixed-discontinuous workers. The proposed movement now modifies that scheme again and places that group under the regime of permanent full-time status.
Although the agreement opens a new phase in the labor organization of the port, there are still matters to be clarified. Among them are the distribution of functions that this staff will assume with the new contractual framework, the organization of work starting in June, and the possible opening of a new pool of temporary workers to cover operational needs. This last point is linked to the change in status of the workers, as the conversion of the current fixed-discontinuous workers into permanent full-time status requires a review of how activity peaks will be addressed.
The negotiation does not start from scratch. The employment system in Algeciras stevedoring has operated for years through cycles in which a pool of temporary workers supports the main workforce until, after a period, they are incorporated into the ordinary structure of the port center. The group that is now on the verge of full-time employment began its journey in early 2018. That process also had a social dimension, as it was then that women were first incorporated into stevedoring tasks in the Port of Algeciras.
The recent sequence links to other precedents. Before this employment pool, the port had already operated with a group of 350 temporary workers between 2013 and the summer of 2017. Those workers supported a workforce of about 1,500 stevedores from the former Sagep, which was later replaced by the current CPE. Their integration occurred in a context particularly sensitive to the sector, coinciding with the state negotiation of the stevedoring reform. Even earlier, in 2012, another group of 420 port workers had been absorbed by the stevedoring company after going through a recruitment system then managed by the OCE.
The size of the workforce has also changed in that journey. With the agreement applied in 2025, the CPE temporarily increased its headcount to about 2,260 workers, compared to just over 1,800 it was operating with before. That document also included the provision to manage the generational turnover through retirements, with the idea of aligning the evolution of employment and the wage mass. The new pact links to that same gradual adjustment process, although it still needs to translate into concrete measures on the ground.
The relevance of this movement is better understood when observing the operational diversity of the Port of Algeciras. Nine stevedoring companies operate in the enclave. Two of them, APM Terminals and TTI Algeciras, account for a significant part of the labor demand due to the activity of the container terminals. Alongside that operation, the port maintains traffic related to solid and liquid bulk, in addition to ro-ro movements, where stevedores intervene in the placement of semi-trailers and other units on the ships connecting both shores of the Strait.
This range of tasks explains why the discussion about future functions is still open. The contractual conversion not only affects the administrative situation of the workers but also the internal allocation of resources to address a port with very heterogeneous activity and industrial and logistical projects on the horizon. The sector cites among those scenarios the evolution of ro-ro traffic, the increase in certain bulk movements, and developments such as Gemini or the expansion of TTI Algeciras, which could alter personnel needs in the coming years.
For now, the known agreement has the value of setting a timeline and a direction for the employment of this group, but does not close all fronts. Up until the expected date for its coming into force, the parties must complete the negotiation of the pending aspects. That phase will determine how the new model of the workforce is articulated and whether, in parallel, the port opens a new access route for future temporary workers, as has happened in previous stages.
The operation, in any case, confirms the continuity of a usual pattern in Algeciras stevedoring: temporary employment pools function as a mechanism for progressive incorporation into a system that, every so often, restructures its labor base based on traffic, retirements, and the structure of the companies operating at the dock. This time, the next key date is set for the beginning of June 2026.