The two-week strike at the port of Liverpool on the west coast of Britain will start this evening after unions and Peel Ports failed to reach a pay deal. The strike will coincide with another round of industrial action at Felixstowe, the country’s largest container port, where workers will down tools for eight days from next week.
Research from VesselsValue shows that average waiting times for containers at Felixstowe shot up in August during the last round of industrial action, rising from about five hours earlier in the summer to a peak of 30 hours during the strike.
Arshad Dadabhoy, trade and customs specialist team lead at the UK’s Institute of Export and International Trade’s academy, commented on the impending twin strikes: “The interruption to supply chains causes havoc across many sectors, but is particularly acute in manufacturing and retail, where companies need to source products, parts and components from across the world.”
“These disruptions will delay the peak season cargo coming from China to Europe. The cargo ships will be diverted to other ports in Europe and the UK, adding pressure to the congestion in the ports of Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Rotterdam, and major port hubs where our proprietary data shows container availability levels are already at a very high level,” said Christian Roeloffs, cofounder and CEO of Container xChange.
