Now unions bring Britain’s biggest port to a standstill
MILITANT union leaders vowed to send ‘ massive shockwaves’ through the UK supply chain as they started a strike at Britain’s biggest port yesterday.
Unite said their eight- day action at Felixstowe will cause ‘ huge disruption’ with ships diverted and hundreds of millions of pounds of trade set to be affected.
Members voted to strike despite the Port of Felixstowe saying it offered workers an 8 per cent pay rise on average with those on lower salaries getting almost 10 per cent.
Management claimed Unite did not consult the 1,900 employees on the offer of a pay deal having balloted them on the first industrial action to hit the port since
‘Not consulted the employees’
1989. Workers including crane drivers, machine operators and stevedores manned the picket lines yesterday after voting by more than 9-1 in favour of strikes.
The union said the stoppage will have a big impact on the port, which handles around four million containers a year.
Unite’s Robert Morton said: ‘Strike action will cause huge disruption... throughout the UK’s supply chain, but this dispute is entirely of the company’s own making.’ He told the BBC: ‘Blame [operator] Hutchison Ports for the actions they’ve taken in putting [this pay rise] on the table.’
But the Port of Felixstowe hit back at the union saying it was ‘disappointed’ that it ‘has not taken up our offer’ to come back to the table.
A spokesman said: ‘We recognise these are difficult times but, in a slowing economy, we believe that the company’s offer, worth over 8 per cent on average in the current year and closer to 10 per cent for lower paid workers, is fair.
‘Unite has failed our employees by not consulting them on the offer and, as a result, they have been put in a position where they will lose pay by going on strike.
‘The port regrets the impact this action will have on UK supply chains.’
Unite, which represents mainly dock workers, says the proposal is significantly below the current inflation rate, and followed a below inflation increase last year.
Felixstowe handles nearly half of the containerised freight entering the country and the action could mean vessels have to be diverted.
The Suffolk port’s operator, Hutchison Ports, claimed its workers’ union, which represents about 500 staff, had accepted their deal.
It has put in place a contingency plan for this week but there are fears this action could be just the start. Yesterday Unite general secretary Sharon Graham vowed: ‘I will be with our members every step of the way, for as long as it takes.’
The militant leader who has held over 450 strikes at a cost of £150million to employers in just one year fired off a series of bellicose tweets.
She said the docks ‘can well afford to give a decent pay rise and Unite will back workers’.
As a result of the Felixstowe industrial action, Maersk, one of the world’s largest container shipping groups, has already diverted three ships from the port.
The firm is monitoring a further 11 vessels that could be affected by the strikes.
But a port source said the strikes will be an ‘inconvenience not a catastrophe’, claiming that the supply chain was used to disruption following the pandemic.
He added: ‘Disruption is the new normal. The supply chain has moved from “just in time to just in case”.’