IT didn’t take long for the working class to move into action following the funeral of Elizabeth II with hundreds of dock workers at one of the UK’s largest container ports going on a two-week strike within hours of the burial.
Docker members of the Unite union at the Port of Liverpool struck after unanimously rejecting a pay offer from the owners of the site, the Peel Ports Group.
Unite accused the port operator of offering a wage cutting 8.3% pay increase, enhanced with a one-off payment of £750, at a time of soaring inflation predicted to hit over 12% shortly, and with warnings it will soar to ‘astronomical’ levels over the next year.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: ‘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.’
Graham insisted that the port’s owners needed to make a ‘reasonable offer and fulfil their previous pay promises.’
The two-week strike at Liverpool docks follows the two-week strike by 1,900 members of Unite in August at Felixstowe, the UK’s largest container port, over a below-inflation pay offer of 7%.
Felixstowe handles about 48% of the UK’s container trade.
Felixstowe dockers are resuming their strike with a further two-week stoppage due to start a week today on Tuesday 27 September.
That means that the two largest ports in the country will simultaneously be closed down for nearly a week.
These massive container ports are the main artery for all the goods imported and exported by the UK, and the coincidence of strikes will rupture trade and the supply chain for British capitalism.
It demonstrates the massive strength of the working class and shows that workers have had enough of pay offers that represent real-terms pay cuts while the bosses of companies make billions in profit on the back of their labour.
Sharon Graham said: ‘Felixstowe docks is enormously profitable. The latest figures show that in 2020 it made £61 million in profits. Its parent company, CK Hutchison Holding Ltd, is so wealthy that, in the same year, it handed out £99 million to its shareholders.’
Graham holds fast to the old reformist belief that these companies can, with a little pressure, be persuaded to share their profits with workers.
The reality is that British capitalism is crashing into recession with inflation soaring through the roof.
For the bosses, this means that imposing pay cuts through below-inflation level increases is the only way to maintain their profits.
With the Tory government under Liz Truss bringing in laws to outlaw strikes that threaten the capitalist economy, the bosses are prepared to face down limited strike action in the ports, the railways and amongst public service workers, relying on the courts and police to break strikes.
For the past ten days, the TUC and union leaders have called a truce with the capitalist class to observe a ‘period of mourning’ for Elizabeth II.
While they called off strikes and closed down the TUC conference, the Tories ploughed on with their attacks on workers, declaring an end to the cap on bankers’ bonuses and forging ahead with closures on the rail network.
The immediate strike by Liverpool dockers has served a warning to the TUC and union leaders that the working class is not prepared to suspend its fight against being pauperised to save a bankrupt capitalist system.
Throughout the working class the demand for a general strike now dominates every strike and demonstration, as workers and young people revolt against a Tory government and capitalist system determined to drive them into the gutter.
The TUC conference is being reconvened in Brighton on October 18. At this Congress, the TUC must be forced to call an immediate general strike to bring down the Tories and bring in a workers’ government that will expropriate the bosses and bankers and build a nationalised planned socialist economy.
Join the lobby of the TUC called by the WRP and Young Socialists on October 18 to force the TUC to call the general strike to bring down the Tories and advance to a socialist society.
