HUNDREDS of workers of the Yantian International Container Terminal (YICT) went on a strike on September 1 and 2 to petition for more pay, Shenzhen Economic Daily reports.

The strike halted operations at the terminal and caused a long queue of container trucks waiting to go into the terminal that was extended from the terminal gates to the highway.

Workers and the terminal operator held talks with the mediation of the local government. The workers' demand was satisfied and they returned to work.

An unidentified person disclosed that in the morning on September 1, operators of gantry cranes and tower cranes walked off the job expressing dissatisfaction with low pay for heavy and dangerous work. The strike was soon spread among other workers at the terminal.

Government departments in Shenzhen city and in Yantian district went to the terminal to mediate after the strike broke out. In the afternoon on September 2, Yantian district government posted a tweet on the Weibo, the Chinese Twitter, explaining the incident and said that about 250 quay crane and gantry crane operators went on a strike to voice their complaints for low pay, and that both parties had reached an agreement and the workers went back to their posts.

Hong Kong media reports that there were as many as 800 workers that took part in the strike, got a 30 per cent raise to the pay, which was about CNY1,700 (US$277.76).

YICT shares the same parent company with Hong Kong International Terminals (HIT), which is Hutchison Port Holdings Trust. HIT workers had a 40-day strike in April and Man of this year.