The workers’ union, Unite the Union, has been trying to raise the issue for over a year and said it had received no response to its letter to Peel Ports on 6 December.
Peel Ports is investing to make Seaforth ‘the dock of the future’ and workers are helping them turn this into reality. Yet Unite says that dockworkers ‘have little or no facilities whilst on shift’, with no hot food provision after 2pm or at weekends, inadequate toilet facilities and eating and seating area, and the heating system doesn’t work properly.
In addition, there are no toilet, shower or catering facilities for lorry drivers inside the docks complex – a situation the drivers describe as ‘inhumane’ at the end of an often long day or while lorries are stacked because of port delays. They say the nearest available safe and legal lorry parking they can use is 20 miles away at Burtonwood services on the M62.
On Friday, Peel Ports admitted to the Liverpool Echo that facilities for lorry drivers who were waiting to access the port estate ‘need to be looked into’, and was in discussions with its tenants and local authorities to come up ‘with a viable solution to drivers’ needs’.
Paddy Crumlin, ITF president and chair of the ITF’s dockers’ section, said in a message read out at the demonstration:"We all have basic needs when we’re working, and they don’t get more basic than a meal, a toilet and somewhere to wash. Those facilities are a basic right. The dockers at Seaforth and the truck drivers visiting the port are being denied them. That is not acceptable. In fact, in the twenty first century it’s little short of staggering.
“We, the ITF, join you in calling on Peel Ports to remedy this situation forthwith. By doing so they won’t just be fulfilling a fundamental requirement as an employer, they’ll be helping build a safer and better working environment. We expect no less from them."
Liverpool Ports is one of the UK sites where Unite is piloting the ITF/IndustriALL hubs programme. This aims to get groups of workers who could otherwise remain in their silos to talk to each other and identify common problems in order to get their voices heard more effectively.
Read Unite’s press release: https://goo.gl/ozeFX7
Read more about the ITF/IndustriALL hubs programme: https://goo.gl/j6s95g
