LONDON (Reuters) – More than 560 dockworkers at the Port of Liverpool will strike from September 19 to October 3 over wage demands in the face of runaway inflation, trade union Unite said on Friday.
“Working people across the country are tired of being told to take a cut in their wages and living standards,” Sharon Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said in a statement.
The planned strike in Liverpool follows an eight-day walkout in August at Felixstowe, Britain’s largest container port, which clogged supply lines but did not cause widespread disruption.
The strike will “severely disrupt” road and sea transport in and around Liverpool, Unite said.
A 7% pay rise has been offered to dockworkers, an insufficient offer which they say amounts to a “wage cut” in an inflationary context. They also claim the Mersey Docks and Harbor Company (MDHC) failed to meet the 2021 pay deal.
MDHC’s parent company, Peel Ports, said it had offered an 8.3 per cent wage offer on top of last year’s 4.5 per cent raise and other improvements to working conditions , sickness benefits and retirement pensions.
“Our salary offer is well above the national average (…) given the sluggish container market, global economic pressures, the conflict in Ukraine and disruptions to global shipping,” said David Huck, director of Peel Ports, in a press release.
(Reportage Sachin Ravikumar and Jonathan Saul; French version Alizée Degorce, edited by Sophie Louet)
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