8-Day Strike Begins at UK’s Biggest Container Port

Shipping containers pictured at the Port of Felixstowe in Suffolk, England, on Aug. 21, 2022. (Joe Giddens/PA Media)

Union members at Felixstowe, the UK’s biggest container port, have gone on an eight-day strike in a dispute over pay, the first industrial action at the site in more than 30 years.

The port, which employs about 2,550 people, handles roughly 4 million containers from 2,000 ships each year, nearly half of the containerised freight entering the UK.

About 1,900 workers at the port who are members of the Unite union walked out on Aug. 21 after the union rejected an offer of a 7 percent raise, as well as a single payment of £500 ($592).

Sharon Graham, general secretary of Unite, speaks at Durham Miners’ Gala in Durham, England, on July 9, 2022. (Ian Forsyth/Getty Images)

“Felixstowe docks is enormously profitable,“ Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said. ”The latest figures show that in 2020 it made £61 million [$72 million] in profits. Its parent company, CK Hutchison Holding Ltd., is so wealthy that, in the same year, it handed out £99 million [$117 million] to its shareholders.

“So they can give Felixstowe workers a decent pay raise. It’s clear both companies have prioritised delivering multi-million-pound profits and dividends rather than paying their workers a decent wage.”

Workers ‘Used as Pawns’

Port authorities said they were “disappointed” that Unite didn’t accept the company’s offer.

“We recognise these are difficult times but, in a slowing economy, we believe that the company’s offer, worth over 8 percent on average in the current year and closer to 10 percent for lower paid workers, is fair,” the Port of Felixstowe said in a statement.

The company criticised Unite for failing to consult its members on the pay offer, stressing that “there will be no winners from this unnecessary industrial action.”

The company noted that the Port of Felixstowe staff union, representing approximately 500 positions, has voted to accept the same pay offer.

Speaking to the BBC, port spokesman Paul Davey said the strikes were part of Unite’s “national agenda.”

“It serves their purpose well to have a strike here at Felixstowe,” Davey said.

He said many workers “feel they’re being used as pawns in this game.”

Logistics UK, an industry body representing freight transport businesses, stated that it was “not expecting massive disruption” from the strike.

A spokesperson told the BBC: “Felixstowe is not a ‘just-in-time’ delivery port—everything coming in is scheduled well in advance.”

“At the moment there is plenty of stock in the supply chain,” the spokesperson said, noting that some firms have already been planning alternative routes in case the strike lasts more than eight days.

PA Media contributed to this report.