Dockers at the UK’s largest container port have voted overwhelmingly to strike after they were offered a below-inflation pay rise, with action planned for August in the latest blow to efforts by ministers to contain a wave of industrial unrest sparked by the cost of living crisis.
Workers at the port of Felixstowe in Suffolk balloted 92% in favour of a strike next month, rejecting a 5% pay rise offer from the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, which their union, Unite, pointed out would be a real-terms pay cut with retail price inflation standing at 11.8%.
“Workers should not be paying the price for the pandemic with a pay cut,” said the Unite general secretary, Sharon Graham. “Unite has undertaken 360 disputes in a matter of months and we will do all in our power to defend workers.”
Unite’s 1,900 Felixstowe members are responsible for all aspects of operations at the Suffolk port, and any industrial action would be likely to mean a standstill at the logistics hub, which handles about 40% of containers entering and leaving the UK.
There are concerns any stoppage could further fuel inflation by pushing up transport costs. “News of a potential strike at Felixstowe will send some British businesses into a spin”, said Simon Geale, an executive vice-president at the logistics strategy firm Proxima. “We’re principally looking at delays, which will mean sustained pricing impact.”
The impact of a stoppage in handling shipping containers could ripple up the UK’s entire supply chain, with vessels prevented from entering the port, and lorries unable to drop off or pick up goods.
Felixstowe handles about 45,000 containers each week, with freight including clothing, consumer goods and manufacturing components. The Unite strike is timed to coincide with an increase in traffic: the number of containers begins to rise from August, as retailers bring over more goods, particularly from the far east, to start filling their warehouses before Christmas.
The dispute is with the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, which is owned by the Hong Kong-based conglomerate CK Hutchison Holdings, owner of the Three mobile phone network and healthcare retailer Superdrug.
The Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company made a pre-tax profit of almost £61m in 2020, according to its most recent accounts.
“The bottom line is this is an extremely wealthy company that can fully afford to give its workers a pay rise,” said Graham. “Instead it chose to give bonanza payouts to shareholders touching £100m.”
A spokesperson for the port company said: “The company made what we believe to be a very fair offer and we are disappointed with the result of the ballot. The union has agreed to our request to meet with Acas next week and we hope that any industrial action can be avoided.”
The vote for action came as a senior union official predicted rolling strikes across the economy for the rest of the year beginning with a “summer of solidarity”, as workers become emboldened to protest in the face of rising living costs.
Simon Weller, the assistant general secretary of the train drivers union Aslef and a national council member of the Trades Union Congress, said strike ballots planned by civil servants and teachers alongside more strikes already planned by college staff and across the rail network – starting with train drivers walking out at seven operators on Saturday – would increase “organic momentum”.
At the AQA exam board, 180 staff are due to stage a 72-hour strike starting on Friday after their employer failed to reopen talks over pay, according to Unison, their union.
After Wednesday’s rail-worker strikes crippled the network across Great Britain, train drivers will also strike at nine rail companies on 13 August, in a move dismissed by the Rail Delivery Group of train operators as “a cynical approach to talks, a total disregard for passengers and putting everyone’s summer plans at risk”.
Members of the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) working for Network Rail and 14 train operators are planning strikes on 18 and 20 August alongside members of the Transport Salaried Staffs’ Association (TSSA) at Avanti West Coast. The RMT has announced a strike on London Underground on 19 August.
Weller dismissed suggestions the TUC would call a general strike, which Mick Lynch, the general secretary of the RMT, said on Wednesday he would campaign for. But Weller said: “There is going to be a summer and autumn of industrial action in multiple sectors as workers in all of these sectors say enough is enough. It is going to gain momentum.”
Coordinated action is also likely, with strikes by different unions in the same sector on the same day, or different sectors on sequential days, to keep the pay demands in the public eye for longer, said union sources. But mass politicised stoppages across industries are unlikely, since each strike needs to be based on a specific dispute with an employer to be legal.
