UK’s Felixstowe Port seals 8.5% pay deal with dock workers

The Port of Felixstowe, Britain’s busiest container port, said that over 90% of its workers had agreed to accept a pay deal that would lift wages by 8.5% next year.

The port, owned by a unit of CK Hutchison Holdings Ltd., will also pay workers a £1,000 bonus in the deal that is effective Jan. 1, 2023, a spokesman for the port said in an email. Workers will also get a backdated 7% increase for 2022 along with a once-off payment of £500, the Unite union said in a statement Tuesday. 

Workers at Felixstowe were among the first groups to strike in the summer over wages. Industrial action has subsequently spread into walkouts by postal workers, railway employees, and even nurses and ambulance staff as wages fail to keep pace with the soaring cost of living.

Felixstowe said this was the earliest it had concluded an agreement on the annual pay review. The Unite union said that while the pay dispute was concluded, there hadn’t been a resolution on the “victimization of a number of Unite members.”

“It provides welcome certainty and stability at a time when our employees, like everyone else, are facing an increase in the cost of living,” Robert Ashton, the chief operating officer of the port, said in the email.