Delays at the docks worsened by last week's Bermuda Industrial Union (BIU) strike action is costing Stevedoring Services Ltd an additional $3,500 a day.

President Bruce Lines said he had hoped to see the backlog at Hamilton docks reduced and back to normal by this coming weekend, however, he said it was set to take longer.

He estimated it could take another ten days for the containers on the port to be fully distributed and new space created.

And he urged businesses and people with containers at the docks to collect their cargo as soon as possible.

Dock workers worked overtime last Friday night, Saturday and last night in a bid to catch up on the lost three days of strike action last week, which saw the majority of staff walk off the busy port, along with hundreds of others across the Island.

And they are to continue working overtime tonight and tomorrow, when deliveries will be made to trucks up to 10 p.m. However, each day of overtime is costing Stevedoring an extra $3,500 in extra pay.

"We are starting to catch up now, but we are staying until 10 p.m. most nights this week delivering full containers," said Mr. Lines.

"It's starting to get a little bit better down here, but we still need to get a lot more full containers off the dock. "We are not going to catch up by this weekend, as we hoped. It will possibly be the end of next week now."

And he added: "It's getting better slowly, but every time we work at night we are paying out more.

"Every night we work, it's about $3,500 extra, which we can't recover. That's in overtime pay. We normally finish at 4.30 p.m. delivering containers, so this is all extra and it costs money."

Mr. Lines said the three-day strike last week had brought the docks to a standstill and so cargo brought in on board the Somers Isles container ship went virtually untouched for days.

He said a knock-on effect from that could be that some food supplies went off. The Somers Isles eventually left the Island on Friday afternoon, much later than planned, and the Bermuda Islander came in on Friday with supplies, but had to wait several hours before being unloaded.

The Oleander, therefore, decided to come a day later than usual, arriving on Monday of this week. But he said the strike action was not only to blame for the delays. He said that with a combination of the Labour Day holiday and Hurricane Fabian had caused the backlog.

Mr. Lines said, as a result, the docks were still packed to the brim and he said the lack of space was making it difficult to get to some containers.

And to matters worse, he said the less-than-full containers that are taken to the sheds on Front Street for pick-up by truck drivers was remaining full for longer periods of time.

He said he believed that problem was down to truck drivers helping to clear the Island and remove downed trees and foliage following Hurricane Fabian, instead of making the usual cargo deliveries.

But he urged as many people as possible to collect their supplies as soon as possible, so space could be created at the port and in the sheds.

"It seems to be taking longer to shift and we are not getting cargo out of these sheds as quickly as we would like," said Mr. Lines.

"We can't move the stuff from the docks into there, unless we get some movement. We want people to come and pick up their cargo. It would be wonderful if we could make people aware that we are open until 10 p.m. right until Thursday night this week for full container deliveries."

But in the meantime, he said Stevedoring Services would just have to pick up the inflated wages bill, however, he said no member of staff got paid last week for any time they were striking.