Staff at the Port of Felixstowe have staged their second walkout in a handful of weeks, exacerbating congestion problems in an already fragile UK supply chain. Over 1,900 members of Unite the union began striking at 7:00 am on Tuesday 27 September. The strike is intended to end on Wednesday 5 October.
Strike action is resuming after Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, owned by the multi-national port operator CK Hutchison, refused to return to negotiations following the initial eight days strike action in August.
Unite the union argued the company offered a 7 per cent pay increase on the workforce. This amounted to a real terms pay cut with the real inflation rate (RPI) currently standing at 12.3 per cent. The workers rejected the imposed pay offer by 82 per cent on 78 per cent turnout.
The beginning of the new strike at Felixstowe coincides with the ongoing strike action at the port of Liverpool. Effectively, this means that over 60 per cent of the UK’s container port capacity will be affected by industrial action.
Source: porttechnology.org