Tempers flared on the fourth day of the UK’s Felixstowe port strike after almost 2 000 dockworkers downed tools in the first industrial action to hit the country’s largest port in decades.
Trade union Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, speaking at the picket line at the port on Wednesday, pledged that the union would “expose” the profits made by CK Hutchison, the global company based in Hong Kong, which owns Felixstowe port. Some 1 900 port workers, which includes almost all the crane drivers, machine operators and stevedores who load and unload ships at the port, downed tools on Sunday at the start of the union’s eight-day strike over a pay dispute. The strike has brought the port to a standstill as workers have arrived daily to protest vociferously outside their workplace.
Unite’s negotiations with the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company hit a deadlock after the employer offered a 7% wage increase, which the union found unacceptable in light of the terminal’s high profits and dividends declared in recent years. The increase offered is also below the real inflation rate of 11.8%, and workers claim they are under strain after accepting a 1.4% below-inflation increase in 2021.
Graham said the union was investigating every association the firm had with clients and investors.
“Every single client, every investor, every decision maker at CK Hutchison is being looked into. I will be inviting the shareholders at CK Hutchison, the clients of CK Hutchison, the decision makers of CK Hutchison to meetings with me, to open the books on what is going on. The company refusal to settle the union claim is about corporate greed,” she said.
“The ultimate owner of CK Hutchison is Li-Ka Shing, Hong Kong’s richest businessman and the 32nd richest man in the world. All the accounts of Li-Ka Shing are being looked into. All the tax havens in the Cayman Islands are being investigated.”
She said Felixstowe port was “making an absolute fortune” and could afford to pay workers more.
“It could pay 50% more on wages and still be in profit. We are asking for 10%. What is the problem?”
According to the port’s online calendar, almost all vessel calls have been cancelled for the rest of the week. The strike is scheduled to end on Sunday night but the port officials announced that the port would be closed on Monday for a bank holiday.
Felixstowe handles more than four million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of goods and about 2 000 ships call at the port each year. Its container handling capacity is forecast to increase to 8m TEUs by 2030.
