LONDON: Workers at Britain’s biggest container port, Felixstowe, on Sunday began an eight-day strike over pay, in the latest industrial action as decades-high inflation intensifies the country’s cost-of-living crisis.

Nearly 2,000 unionised employees at the port in eastern England, including crane drivers, machine operators and stevedores, started their walkout on Sunday morning in the first strike at Felixstowe since 1989.

It comes amid stoppages over pay and working conditions across various UK industries, with railway workers just the latest to strike on Thursday and Saturday this week.

Postal workers plan a four-day strike later this month, Telecoms giant BT will face its first stoppage in decades while Amazon warehouse staff, criminal lawyers and refuse collectors are among the others staging walkouts.

PM hopeful Liz Truss downplays prospect of recession

Pay hike demands are driven by inflation, which hit a 40-year-high above 10 per cent last month, as soaring food and energy prices hurt millions.

The Unite union representing the striking Felixstowe staff said the stoppage will have a big impact at the port, which handles around four million containers a year from 2,000 ships.

The union wants pay rises for its members at or near inflation, arguing the docks are “enormously profitable”.

“They can give Felixstowe workers a decent pay raise,” said Unite general secretary Sharon Graham, who added that parent company, CK Hutchison Holding Ltd, handed out nearly 100 million ($121m) to shareholders in 2020.

The Port of Felixstowe said in a statement that it was “disappointed” the walkout had gone ahead and called its offer of salary increases of on average 8pe “fair”.

Recession

Tory leadership favourite Liz Truss downplayed on Sunday the prospect of a UK recession, while the man tipped to be her finance minister vowed “help is coming” over the soaring cost of living.

Truss, the frontrunner in polls to beat rival Rishi Sunak and become Britain’s next prime minister, pledged in an interview to lead a “small business and self-employed revolution” if in power.

“There is too much talk that there’s going to be a recession,” Truss told The Sun on Sunday tabloid.

“I don’t believe that’s inevitable. We can unleash opportunity here in Britain.” She argued that the UK should create the economic conditions to produce “the next Google or the next Facebook”.

“It’s about that level of ambition,” Truss added.

Published in Dawn, August 22nd, 2022