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Colour Prejudice
Felixstowe has two groups of workers - the older longer serving and higher paid "greens" and the newer, generally younger "blues"
Last year the greens nearly brought the port out on strike over an alleged attempt to reduce their wages. see Strike Free Port.
As part of their sophisticated campaign they used the power of the internet. see Voice of Reason.
Nowadays, this once firebrand web-site seems strangely muted.
The "greens" are quiet if not actually happy.
Copy Tactics
Now the "blues" are on the move to try to get wage parity with the "greens".
They are using the power of publicity by putting pressure on their union through the press.
Split Loyalties
This is a very unstable situation.
The Union must be at their wit's end trying to represent both groups fairly.
Certainties:
You cannot reduce the wages or attack the working conditions of an English dock-worker. They will strike.
You cannot have two groups of dock-workers along side one another doing the same job at different rates of pay.
Eventually the lower paid will strike.
There is still an instinctive sense of fairness that runs deep in English society that will outweigh every other consideration.
Anyone who thinks you can, for any length of time, is completely crazy.
Realities
The problem for Felixstowe, faced with massive new price competition coming from the River Thames, is desperately serious. See Rival Port
Second Thoughts
They must now reconsider their rush for more growth and concentrate on identifying their best paying traffic and protecting it.
They have to add value to their operations so that the new competition is not on cost alone.
Economies of scale on volume box shifting will cease to generate sufficient revenue to pay the labour force appropriately.
Traditional Remedies
History has the lessons in Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
Oddly, they had Blues and Greens brawling in the port of Constantinople and there was something not so dissimilar in the Port of London last century.
Machiavelli does not always prevail. Divide and rule remains dangerous in seaports.
From Unexpected Sources
Religion too can also bring wisdom. Has no-one heard today of The Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard?
Sunday School
It would be amusing to think of the ultimate owners of Felixstowe, together with the Union, dumping Marx, Lenin and Friedman in the bin and taking up the classics and church attendance to help solve the problems at Britain's Premier port.
Or experience paying off
It is interesting to see that the workers at Felixstowe are so adept at using publicity to further their interests.
But then they had the best teachers in the world - the men who built the place. See Traffic Generator
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