THE COMPANY IS TREATING US LIKE PEASANTS
But striking dockers also blast Starmer
DOCKERS striking just a few miles from Labour’s party conference are furious with both their employer and Keir Starmer.
The 560 Liverpool workers, today starting the second week of a fortnight-long stoppage, accuse the profitable Mersey Docks and Harbour Company of breaking promises.
With the Retail Prices Index measure of inflation at 12.3%, the dockers say an 8.3% pay offer would cut their living standards, even with a £750 one-off payment.
They also dispute company claims that average earnings are £43,000 a year. Asa Gray, 41, said yesterday: “None of us know anybody here paid anything remotely like that.”
Ship’s foreman Steve Saunderson, 34, said on the picket line: “We were hailed as key workers during the Covid pandemic and now the company is treating us like peasants because they don’t want to give us a pay rise matching inflation.”
The strikers enjoy huge public backing in Liverpool. Passing car drivers toot horns and local football heroes Neville Southall and Jamie Carragher have voiced support. Folk singer Jamie Webster played a gig at the dock gates, pulling in a crowd of 2,000. Labour ex-leader Jeremy Corbyn, veteran left-winger John McDonnell and RMT rail union chief Mick Lynch have all visited in solidarity too. Yet the dockers are angry that Mr Starmer has not travelled the few miles from Labour’s annual gathering to meet them. Mr Saunderson said: “Keir Starmer is in the Pullman Hotel having a buffet breakfast instead. He’s a Tory in a red tie.”
His decision to withhold support for strikers, and an order banning frontbenchers from joining picket lines, are also creating resentment.
Starmer is wary of alienating voters disrupted by transport strikes and argues that Labour in government would mediate in such disputes – but this is a risky strategy.
Felixstowe dockers at the country’s largest container port in Suffolk today start an eight-day strike and more action is planned in Liverpool.
David Huck, chief operating officer of MDHC’s parent firm Peel Ports, said last week: “We fully recognise our colleagues’ concerns on the costof-living crisis... we have responded with a pay package that represents a 10% average increase.”