Strikes at Liverpool container port called off

17 October

As the second strike by some 600 workers at the port of Liverpool in the UK came to an end, Unite confirmed there would be a third two-week strike over pay.

Set to run from 24 October to 7 November, the strikes concern an ongoing dispute over raises in pay for workers at the port, which handles a significant percentage of the UK’s containerised trade in goods.

Peel Ports Group, which owns and manages operations for the Port of Liverpool, has claimed it has offered workers a pay increase of 10.2%, which the union has refused. 

Unite claims that the actual offer is closer to 8.2% and that Peel Ports Group’s position on the dispute has been misleading, while also alleging that the company has used tactics designed to intimidate port workers during the course of the dispute.

"Since the strikes at the docks began on 19 September, the workers have been subject to job threats despite plans to expand the port and untrue statements that they are being offered 10.2% by the company. The real offer is around 8.2%, a pay cut while the RPI inflation rate is at 12.3%," a statement from Unite’s website said.

In early October, the Peel Ports Group said its pay rise offer consists of "an 8.3% pay package [that] has been enhanced with a one-off payment of £750 for each container operative at the port".

In letters to staff that the company published on its website dated 6 and 7 October, Peel Ports Group warned of a potential restructure, citing forecasts of "a minimum" 30% down-turn in container volumes at the port over the long-term. Subsequently, the company issued redundancy notices for more than 100 staff, noting in a public statement that it had begun a restructure and "redundancy consultation process" for its Port of Liverpool-based containers operations division.

Union Unite has dismissed the tactics as both "desperate" and intimidation.

The port owners union Unite are also using differing measures of inflation and different dates to benchmark inflation.

Peel Ports Group is using the Consumer Prices Index that includes homeowners’ housing costs (CPIH) and a fixed date of 1 June 2022, tying its pay rise offer to the CPIH rate and the "pay anniversary date" of 1 June 2022.

Unite is using the Retail Price Index (RPI), which is published on a rolling, monthly, basis and, most recently measured inflation at 12.3% in the year up to 14 September 2022. 

The UK’s Office of National Statistics publishes both the RPI and CPIH indices.

11 October

In response to a week-long action that is the second strike by Liverpool workers, running from 11-17 October, Peel Ports Group publicly announced it would be cutting jobs due to a "marked deterioration" in container volumes. The company said the move to make workers redundant was "extremely regrettable but now unavoidable, given the economic backdrop".

Workers’ union Unite called the move both "desperate" and an intimidation tactic.

"Unite said the threatened redundancies make no business sense and have been proposed and dropped previously. The port had already revealed it is looking to expand. This latest move, therefore, is simply the company seeking to intimidate workers taking lawful industrial action in a long-running pay dispute," a report published on the Unite website said. 

Saying its redundancy consultation process would begin this week as part of a restructuring of Liverpool port’s container division, a spokesperson for Peel Ports Group said: "We have seen an increasing decline in the movement of containerised cargo for Liverpool over the last few months, in line with industry figures which show a 4.6% drop in volume across Europe."

"This, together with a recent sharp fall in container vessel charter rates of around 50%, indicate a rapid decline in throughput is expected over the next few months.

"While this is an extremely regrettable situation, as a responsible employer, we need to restructure now to minimise the potential greater impact the downturn in container business will have on jobs, further down the line."

Unite announced the current strike in late September. Nearly 600 Liverpool port workers are scheduled to take seven days of fresh strike action. In addition to the port operatives and engineers who began two weeks of industrial action on 19 September, senior control room operators and control room operators have now voted to join the strikes. 

Unite said its workers would walk out, "demanding a pay rise in line with inflation (RPI) which is currently 12.3%".

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• Liverpool port workers to strike for two weeks
• Another UK container port hit by workers’ strike over pay
• UK supply chains show strain as threat of port strikes continues
• Port of Felixstowe workers set dates for second strike

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A spokesperson for Peel Ports said, “Unite continues to make unrealistic and unsustainable above-inflation pay demands, while declining a meeting with ACAS."

According to Peel Ports Group, Unite, in talks last week, "demanded a 15.7% pay rise, almost double the rate of inflation at the June pay anniversary review date and refuses a tripartite meeting with ACAS, the independent advisory, conciliation and arbitration service, which would support mediation between the parties.

"Unite has also issued a statement which confirms their full knowledge of a decline in container volumes for months, due to wider economic uncertainty, dismissing the issue as old news," Peel Ports Group said.

“We are concerned Unite have no interest in resolving matters through the collective bargaining arrangements we have in place or via an independent ballot, as it continues to push for more strikes. Our average 10.2% basic pay increase offered in talks last week represents an industry-leading deal and is 2% above inflation, at the time of the pay anniversary and review in June," Peel Ports Group said.

The organisation said it was calling on Unite to reconsider the offer.

However, according to Unite, the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company (MDHC) division of Peel Ports Group "has already failed to honour the 2021 pay agreement".

"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 said. 

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, “Peel Ports’ plan is to pile up even more profit at the expense of its workers and their families. These regurgitated, months-old plans are simply a desperate attempt to intimidate workers. It won’t work.”

“The employer MDHC is part of Peel Ports, which recently reported a record profit before tax of £141M (US$171M), greater than the entire wage bill for the year. Peel Ports has paid out more than £300M in dividends over the last five years.”

Peel Ports Group’s most recent filings with the UK’s Companies House show the business posted a profit of £141M during the 2020-2021 fiscal year, which ran from April 2020 to March 2021 and covered the first year of trade disruption and dislocation due to the coronavirus pandemic as well as increased disruption at UK ports from the impact of Brexit. In 2019, Peel Ports received UK Government funding to boost measures it had taken to improve resilience ahead of the UK’s departure from the EU. 

The documents, filed in January 2022 with Companies House, also show the group’s total financial takings decreased from £792M to £595M, which the business attributed to the Covid-19 pandemic and the sale of its marine support services business in July 2020. The accounts show the number of people employed by the group dropped by roughly half, from 3,135 to 1,612 during the fiscal year.

Peel Ports Group’s profits from 2020-2021 were notable in comparison to the business’ losses in FY 2019-2020 of nearly £100M. 

MDHC Peel Ports Group is, as Unite the Union pointed out, headquartered in the Isle of Man, a UK tax haven and majority owned by British billionaire John Whittaker, who is chairman of the Peel Group, which holds stakes in property, media and infrastructure businesses such as port operations and management.

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