After their first round of strikes ended on October 3 without a resolution, dock workers at the Port of Liverpool have organised additional industrial action for this week ending on October 17.
Eleven days of strike ended with no fresh offer from the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MHDC), which had proposed an 8.3% wage increase for workers.
Control room operators joined port workers and engineers who began a two-week strike on September 19, according to the Unite union, who announced that the walkout would begin on October 11 and end on October 17.
Liverpool’s senior control room operators decided to strike in solidarity with the 560 port operators and engineers who first struck on September 19 after rejecting a wage offer of between 7% and 8.3%.
The Unite Union is taking action as part of its ongoing pay dispute. Their members, which include port workers and maintenance engineers, are on strike over a pay offer they claim amounts to a “pay cut” with inflation hitting double digits. They also say that Mersey Docks and Harbour Company’s owners haven’t kept their end of a pay deal for 2021.
The union warned that the cumulative effect of so many positions striking would render the entire port “inoperable” as it prepared to ballot the port’s dock masters, shift managers, and vessel traffic services officers over potential strike action.
The union rejected an 8.3% salary package and a one-time payment of £750 for each container operative at the port, prompting the present strike, which coincides with an eight-day walkout by Felixstowe port workers.
According to Peel Ports, the union’s proposals for a basic salary raise of over 12.3% and further pay rate increases would bring the entire package to about 20%.
Peel Ports promised all of its non-container clients that port operations would continue as usual throughout this time.
