Bobby Morton, a national officer of Unite, the UK’ second largest union, has stated that the latest strike at the Port of Felixstowe “will inevitably cause huge disruption” there and “send shockwaves through the UK’s supply chain.”
In a statement on Tuesday, Morton added that “this dispute is entirely of the company’s own making. It has been given every opportunity to negotiate an agreement but it has refused to do so.”
The remarks come as more than 1,900 members of Unite at Felixstowe, Britain’s busiest port for containerized goods produced in East Asia, resumed striking on September 27, in an eight-day event due to wrap up on October 5. The action comes after Felixstowe was hit by eight days of walkouts during a pay dispute last month.
Unite said at the time that members rejected a 7% pay offer from the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, which the union added was below the rate of inflation.
Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham described the company as “a tremendously wealthy” firm which “can fully afford to pay its workers a fair pay increase but has chosen not to in order to boost their already huge profits.”
“Unite is now entirely focused on promoting and defending the jobs, pay and conditions of its members. The Felixstowe dock workers are receiving the union’s unflinching support,” Graham stressed.
Port spokesman Paul Davey, for his part, said that the average pay for workers at Felixstowe was £43,000 ($46,000), and that employees had been offered a 7% raise plus a single payment of £500 ($539).
He said that the offer had been an increase of between 8.1% and 9.6%, depending upon the category of worker at the port, at a time when the average pay increase in the country was 5%.
“We've got a shrinking economy, we're going into recession […]. I think that's a very fair offer indeed”, Davey argued.
About 2,550 people currently work at Felixstowe, with striking workers including crane drivers, machine operators and stevedores.