The 45 employees of EDC – members of Unite, the country’s largest union – will be staging the 48-hour strike from 6.00am on Monday, 21 May. This follows the initial 24-hour strike on 7-8 May – the first strike by dockers at Tilbury in Essex since 1989.
Unite regional officer, Jane Jeffery said: “The EDC’s intransigent management have not moved in this dispute, since the first strike earlier this month.
“Our members are again taking action in a bid to get the company to enter into meaningful talks – if they don’t, the strikes will continue into the summer.
“Our members are not prepared to lose, on average, £2,500-a-year because the company has decided to arbitrarily introduce new contracts which are very detrimental to their living standards.”
The workers will be picketing outside the main gate of Tilbury docks in the dispute which centres on the company’s decision to introduce a ‘follow the ship’ contract. This means that staff work when the ships are ready for unloading, and not to set shift patterns.
EDC deals with the unloading and distribution of paper reels.