Union members at Felixstowe, Britain’s biggest container port, have gone on an eight-day strike in a dispute over pay, the first industrial action at the site in over 30 years.
The port, which employs about 2,550 people, handles around 4 million containers from 2,000 ships each year, nearly half of the containerised freight entering the UK.
Around 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 rise plus 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)
Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham said: “Felixstowe docks is enormously profitable. 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….