Ferry workers block Calais port for second day

CALAIS, France (Reuters) - Employees of a ferry service recently sold by Eurotunnel maintained their blockade of the northern French port of Calais for a second day on Tuesday after a court rejected their bid to extend a charter contract with Eurotunnel.

The MyFerryLink workers argue the court decision jeopardises hundreds of jobs at their company.

Strike action by around 400 workers last week already led to major traffic jams of lorries, triggering widespread chaos and prompting migrants around the port to try to stow away on trucks bound for Britain.

"The blockade is in place," trade unionist Eric Vercoutre of the MyFerryLink works council, told reporters.

"We want to make the French, British and Belgian governments understand that if a solution isn't found to save our 600 jobs, there will be a lot of disruption this summer.

"When the mobilisation ramps up, we'll block everything, which could disrupt Eurotunnel," he warned.

A Reuters reporters in Calais saw dozens of lorries were already jammed up on the motorway leading to the port. Strikers barred access to the port, which looked largely empty inside. Just three passenger cars were waiting at customs.

"This is not a very nice thing to happen to us," Stanley Shakespeare, a retired Londoner, said as he and his wife tried to head home after a holiday in Spain.

"We love France and we love the French people who are very nice but as we got here today I may change my mind."

Eurotunnel, the operator of the undersea rail link between England and France, said on its website that its services were currently operating to schedule.

Eurotunnel in June agreed to sell its Calais-to-Dover ferry business to Denmark's DFDS to end a lengthy battle with British competition authorities. [ID:nL5N0YU1OP]

SCOP Sea France, the co-operative of workers that runs the ferries, asked a commercial court in Boulogne-sur-Mer to extend its contract with Eurotunnel and prevent it from being dissolved after the sale. The court on Monday rejected that request.

DFDS, which is set to take over operation of the ferries on July 2, has pledged to keep 202 out of 577 workers, a level the union sees as unacceptable.

The ferry workers had initially tried to buy the business of operating the two ferries from Eurotunnel themselves but failed.

(Writing by Mark John; Editing by Hugh Lawson)