Liverpool dockers will strike this month after the port operator MDHC failed to "table a reasonable offer".
More than 560 port operatives and maintenance engineers working at Liverpool's docks will take strike action from September 19 to October 3. The dockers have decided to strike after port operator MDHC offered a seven percent pay offer.
A spokesperson for Unite said "with the real rate of inflation, RPI, at 12.3 percent and rising is a pay cut". MDHC, owned by the Peel Group, reportedly made £30m profits in 2021 but Unite claimed the port operator has failed to honour a 2021 pay agreement.
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This includes the company not undertaking a promised pay review, which last happened in 1995, and failing to deliver on an agreement to improve shift rotas. Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “MDHC is controlled by a tax-exiled billionaire and can well afford to pay these workers a proper pay rise.
"Workers across the country are sick to death of being told to take a hit on their wages and living standards while employer after employer is guilty of rampant profiteering. MDHC needs to think again, table a reasonable offer and fulfil its previous pay promises.”
The strike action is expected to severely disrupt both shipping and road transport in Liverpool and the surrounding areas. Unite said more strikes are set to be scheduled in the coming weeks if MFHC fails to put forward an acceptable offer to the workers.
Nearly 2,000 Unite members at the port of Felixstowe are also in dispute over pay. Their last round of strike action took place between August 21 and 29.
Unite lead officer for freeports, Steven Gerrard, said: “MDHC has refused to honour the previous pay pledges it made to our members and is refusing to put forward an acceptable pay rise now. It has no one else to blame for the disruption that will be caused.
“MDHC needs to deliver on the agreements it made in 2021 as well as tabling an offer our members can accept for 2022.”
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