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Cautious Words
It is always difficult to comment on an industrial dispute when strike action is in prospect. The removal of the threat makes more open comment possible without risking inflaming an already tense situation.
Unhappy Workforce
The majority of Felixstowe's dock workers, although unwilling to strike, are unhappy with their terms and conditions. That much is clear.
It probably breaks down more to the system than the actual pay.
see Wages Battle At Felixstowe?
Repair Job
For sure, Hutchison, the port's owners, will have to work very hard to repair and improve their industrial relations.
Right to Work
The men were right not to strike.
Had they done so, the roof would have fallen in.
Felixstowe is so important to the nation's daily life that the government would have been forced to intervene almost immediately.
National Crisis
So much of these islands' daily essentials pass through Britain's premier port, often exclusively, that a strike would produce an immediate national crisis.
Vital Route
Modern stocking and delivery systems coupled with an island economy do not allow for port monopolies and strikes.
See Just in Time
Hutchison would have been ordered to get the men back to work, and the men themselves would have been faced with empty supermarkets and hospitals running out of supplies.
Inevitable Return
They would have gone back, of course. Felixstowe men have never been militants or politically motivated.
The Inquest
The repercussions would have been serious.
Hutchison would have faced a demand to reduce its dominant position in Britain's liner ports.
The wisdom of allowing a single port and its labour force so much power would also have been under question. Felixstowe grew on its reliability and freedom from strike. A strike would have destroyed the image permanently.
Handing it to the Competition
The new port on the Thames see Rival Port would have received immediate and widespread government and public backing.
Decline and Fall
Shell Haven is anyway an enormous threat to the future of Felixstowe, a strike would have sealed the Felixstowe's fate. Many years of decline would lie ahead, whatever the short-term gains.
Pointer to the Future
Strangely, this narrowly avoided disaster, also highlights one pointer to a changing Felixstowe.
It is clear, as it always should have been, that near-monopolies are dangerous.
Back Stop
That fact alone should secure Felixstowe some kind of future against the reasserted power of the better located ports on London's river.
Determined
Felixstowe still seems determined to try to go ahead with its plans to expand against mounting opposition. see Objections to Expansion
Doubtful Prospects
This expansion depends on ever increasing flows of world trade.
…and yet international trade looks to be ever more vulnerable.
...in a Changing World
The forces of protectionism are gathering strength daily.
Health scare follows health scare.
National Governments lose Control
Governments are even losing control of their own officials.
see Pigging It - A Twenty -first Century Scandal
Lack of control leaves them increasingly helpless against growing isolationism.
The world is changing fast and not in the direction many expected.
Felixstowe will not prosper on the policies of the past, but it might if it moves to be part of the new patterns.
Will it do so?
We shall have to wait and see.
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