Eight-Day Strike Over Below-Inflation Pay Offer Looms at UK's Biggest Container Port

Dockworkers at the UK's biggest consumer goods port are set to strike later this month over pay — as inflation soars amid sanctions on Russia.

More than 1,900 members of Unite, Britain's largest trade union, will walk out at Felixtowe port on the North Sea in Suffolk for eight days from Sunday August 21 to Monday August 29.

That was after employer Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based CK Hutchison, refused to increase its pay offer of seven per cent. Dockworkers accepted a rise of 1.4 percent in 2021.

"Strike action will cause huge disruption and will generate massive shockwaves throughout the UK's supply chain," said Unite national officer for docks Bobby Morton, but insisted that "this dispute is entirely of the company's own making."

"It has had every opportunity make our members a fair offer but has chosen not to do so," Morton said. "Felixstowe needs to stop prevaricating and make a pay offer which meets our members' expectations."

Further talks between the union and management are scheduled for Monday.

The bank of England warned on Thursday that the British economy was headed for a recession in the fourth quarter of the year, while think-tank the Resolution Foundation predicted inflation could hit 15 percent by the start of 2023.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the firm and its parent company were "massively profitable and incredibly wealthy," and "fully able to pay the workforce a fair day's pay".

"The company has prioritised delivering multi-million pound dividends rather than paying its workers a decent wage," Graham charged. "Unite is entirely focused on enhancing its members' jobs, pay and conditions and it will be giving the workers at Felixstowe its complete support until this dispute is resolved and a decent pay increase is secured."

Workers in other sectors are threatening or have already taken industrial action over pay as the cost of living has soared — driven by a combination of massive government relief payments during the COVID-19 lockdown and the embargo on energy imports from Russia as retaliation for its special military operation in the Ukraine.

Rail Unions RMT and ASLEF held strikes in June and July, with more on the cards as talks with employers remain deadlocked.

Even doctors have threatened to walk out over their demand for a 30 percent rise this year.