Felixstowe: Shipping port strike could 'seriously mess up Christmas', expert warns
A prolonged strike at the UK's largest shipping container port could "seriously mess up Christmas", an expert has warned.
James Hookham, general secretary of trade group Global Shippers Forum, said industrial action at Felixstowe could create major disruption in the coming months.
More than 1,900 port workers with Unite union began an eight-day strike on Sunday morning after rejecting a 7% pay rise offer from the Port’s owners, Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company.
The port handles almost half of the UK's container shipping.
Hookham told LBC: “There’s stuff [goods] on the way, it’s expected to be here over the next five to six weeks, so if this is a prolonged stoppage there could be some serious disruption to expected delivery times.
“A lot of importers are expecting to start receiving the goods they sell not just at Christmas, but Halloween and half term, and that’s a big peak - as of course is now, Black Friday.”
Read more: Strikes at the UK's largest container port will see supply chain 'severely disrupted', union admits
“We can’t have a long strike here – this would really seriously mess up Christmas for everyone.”
Currently, many countries use a "just in time supply chain", Hookham said, meaning it would be too late to try and rearrange when many goods will arrive in the UK.
“A lot of this stuff will have left countries where it was made – particularly in the far East and China – five or six weeks ago, so it’s a bit late to start trying to reschedule it," he said.
“If they [container ships] can’t berth at UK ports they’ll just keep going.
Watch: Felixstowe workers strike for the first time in decades
“They’ll just go straight into Rotterdam or Antwerp and offload the UK containers there, and [UK firms will] either fetch them back over the North Sea on smaller ships.
“Or possibly even try – if they’re needed really urgently – to truck them back in through the Channel Tunnel or on the ferries.”
The staff at Felixstowe, on the Suffolk coast, are taking industrial action in a dispute over pay, becoming the latest workers to strike in Britain as unions demand higher wages for members facing a cost-of-living crisis.
"Strike action will cause huge disruption and will generate massive shockwaves throughout the UK's supply chain, but this dispute is entirely of the company's own making," said Bobby Morton, the Unite union's national officer for docks.
"It [the company] has had every opportunity make our members a fair offer but has chosen not to do so."
On Friday, Felixstowe's operator Hutchison Ports said it believed its offer of a 7% pay rise and a lump sum of £500 was fair.
It said the port's workers union, which represents about 500 staff in supervisory, engineering and clerical roles, had accepted the deal.
Unite, which represents mainly dock workers, says the proposal is significantly below the current inflation rate, and followed a below inflation increase last year.
The port said it would have a contingency plan in place, and was working to minimise disruption during the walkouts, which will last until 29 August.
