DOCK workers gathered at a picket line at the UK's largest port yesterday as they commenced their first of eight days of planned strike action.

Some 1,900 members of Unite at Felixstowe began their walkout yesterday in a dispute over pay, the first strike to hit the port since 1989.

The Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company offered a seven per cent pay increase, but the union rejected the deal because it was below the rate of inflation.

The union argued that both Felixstowe Docks and parent company CK Hutchison were profitable and wealthy enough to be able to stump up the cash for a pay increase that was in line with inflation.

"Let's be very clear. Felixstowe Docks is hugely profitable. Together with its company CK Hutchison they can and must give workers a decent pay rise," Sharon Graham, Unite's general secretary, wrote on Twitter.

Unite national officer Robert Morton told BBC breakfast yesterday that firms should not blame the union and instead contact CK Hutchison and urge its bosses to return to the negotiating table.

Shipping giant Maersk, along with other port and trade bodies, warned of disruption ahead of the strike, and said it was planning appropriate contingencies.

While supply chain players such as warehouse operators will be impacted, it is possible that consumers "will see little impact," Tim Morris, chief executive of trade association UK Major Ports Group, told Times Radio yesterday. "We [will] wait to see what happens over the next couple of days."

A spokesperson for the Department for Transport said: "Ports are well-accustomed to shutting for a number of days at a time due to bad weather or high winds and are well equipped to mitigate any disruption, with resilient supply chains in place."

Late Friday, the Port of Felixstowe staff union, another Unite branch that represents about 500 employees in supervisory roles, engineering and clerical positions, agreed to the pay offer on the table.

"We recognise these are difficult times but, in a slowing economy, we believe that the company's offer, worth over eight per cent on average in the current year and closer to 10 per cent for lower paid workers, is fair," the Port said.

(c) 2022 City A.M., source Newspaper