Christmas presents under threat as workers at UK’s biggest container port set to strike for eight days
WORKERS at the country’s biggest container port are to stage an eight-day strike threatening Christmas chaos for retailers.
More than 1,900 Felixstowe port workers are set to walk out from September 27 as docks start to unload festive goods this month.
The Unite union is furious the management team there ended talks imposing a 7 per cent deal for the workforce.
The industrial action will also coincide with a two-week walkout by workers at the port of Liverpool from next Wednesday in a pay dispute.
Simon Geale, of supply chain specialists Proxima, has previously warned that if the dispute at Felixstowe continued into September it could cause “serious disruption”.
He said: “The retailers in particular will be keeping an eye on this because the closer we get and the more we move into September, that’s when they start unloading for Christmas.”
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Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said in August that industrial action could escalate if demands for a ten per cent pay hike were not met.
She said yesterday that the bosses there are “eye-wateringly wealthy but rather than offer a fair pay offer, they have instead attempted to impose a real terms pay cut on their workers”.
The port of Felixstowe said: “The collective bargaining process has been exhausted and there is no prospect of agreement being reached with the union.”
The previous strike there ran at the end of August.