Staff at Red Funnel have voted for strike action which could cause serious disruption to cross-Solent travel this Summer.
Fran Collins, Chief Executive at Red Funnel, has this evening (Tuesday) said that she is disappointed that members of Unite the Union have voted to go ahead with the industrial action.
Unite the Union members represent 20% of Red Funnel’s workforce, so any strike will have a huge impact.
At this stage, Unite has not communicated dates for strike action; however it is obliged to give 2 weeks’ notice ahead of any action. This means that there will be no strikes before 19th July.
The row over pay comes after Unite members demanded a 16% pay rise in December last year, with discussions having been ongoing since Christmas time.
Red Funnel has offered 6.3% for roles within the collective bargaining unit, and 4.5% for all other roles, above many recent pay settlements within the same sector. The cross-Solent operator says that the pay claim should have been settled for the start of 2022, so whilst the business is sympathetic to today’s inflation levels, they are not relevant to this pay claim.
Fran Collins, CEO at Red Funnel, has said:
“I am incredibly disappointed that members have voted for strike action. Our priority, as always, is to ensure that the Island remains connected and that we continue to provide the lifeline services that so many rely upon.
“We have prepared robust contingency plans to ensure essential services are maintained and to minimise disruption as far as possible. We will issue a revised timetable by Tuesday 12th July and we will contact all customer directly affected by any changes. We can confirm that customers with bookings between 5th – 19th July will not be affected by industrial action.
“We are keen to recognise and reward all colleagues, particularly during these uncertain times, however we must be realistic in terms of what the business can afford to ensure we continue to provide lifeline services for our customers, promoting the long-term success of the Island economy.”
Let’s all vote for more money
The CEO of Red Funnel is disappointed that workers voted to take strike action over pay. Bet the workers were more than disappointed to find that top management have been given massive bonuses from a company that pleads hardship all the time and has a terrible record on reliability
Exactly. There’s more than enough money to go around if it was to be spread a little more evenly
sounds just like GKN
Well the ferry companies are strangling the Island again, so won’t be a problem when they don’t have so many hours if sailings are reduced, or won’t have jobs if services are cut! Tbh were all suffering and when I compare my hourly rate and responsibility a job I could walk away from at the end of the day sounds great.
Good on them, huge profits, huge director salaries & golden pensions, give the workers a decent rise & stop the fat cats!
It doesn’t work like that. They will just raise the prices. I don’t doubt there are people who can’t afford to leave the island.
stay put then, life is all about choices
Red Funnel should do to the 20% who strike what P&O did. Make them redundant and get a load of agency staff in. Everyone is suffering from the economic troubles brought on by a corrupt and incompetent government, however asking for a 16% pay rise is rank stupidity on the part of the Union. We are, as I mentioned before, going to see loads more strikes happening in the near future as unions will jump on the opportunity to cause chaos, not to benefit their members. Remember Scargill and his chronies?
To put 16% in context: how long ago was the last inflationary pay rise and what the inflation has been since then?
Well what did you think, staff working unsociable hours and night shifts for just over £9 an hour
Nobody forces them to work they signed the contract
This vote cannot be legal as the staff are always off sick and would be unable to vote.
A massive recession is going to hit Britain the likes of which few will have know or remembered.
Markets are already pricing it in, the Chancellor has up and gone as he knows what is to come and wants to get out early to avoid taking the blame.
Soon jobs will be hard to find, and the UK will be in dire trouble for a decade, watch, and learn.
The U.S will keep adding fuel to the fire in Europe to start and spread a war here, knowing that they are well placed with a surplus of oil and grain, and again, will be the only ones to come out richer .
God help your children
Where’s that bridge?
Bad news for passengers, but good news, as it was announced today a new drone drug service from the mainland. And as that is the only form of public transport not on strike, broken down, closed for Covid, or clapped out, it is now the only form of public transport working on the island.
Does that drone fly over the prison yard by any chance?
What on earth is going on ? everyone wanting to strike !!!!!
The cost of living is going up for everyone, so who is next to strike??? OH YES The Royal mail are now saying about striking!!!!
If everybody got the pay rise they demand inflation will rocket even higher ….
Don’t Rob Peter to pay Paul …
The problem isn’t just the current inflation spike, there is also the way that most workers have had a decade of, on average, below inflation pay rises, meaning that by the start of this crisis most were already worse off than they were 10 years ago.
Now, people can cope with being 0.1% or 0.2% poorer each year, but the 11% whammy that is coming isn’t so much the straw that broke the Donkey’s back, as a ruddy tree trunk.
This is a situation of this Government’s own making. A decade of “austerity” driven below inflation pay rises followed by Brexit shutting the door to companies employing cheap E European labour mean that British workers have the motivation and leverage to force companies to cough up.
Brexit proponents said that it would deliver higher wages for British workers, and it is but don’t imagine they thought it would occur quite like this.
I’m wondering if anyone will really notice,rubbish service anyway!!! Sweet how you waited a week or so after ripping off all the mainlanders who came to the festival.
Don’t agree with strike most people have to just get on with working having been given 3.5 per cent rises or the minimum wage bet they all earn at least minimum wage, or more and still think a strike is justified punishing islanders that need to travel
Not everyone has been given a pay rise, I work in education (admin) and we have not had a pay rise for years, £9.64 per hour. Staff at Red Funnel work all hours, some on 13 hour shifts, overnights, whole days. Some shifts 03.30 – 15.30 etc. Bank holidays with no extra pay, Christmas Eve, some Christmas day, boxing day, New Years day again at no extra pay, when the rest of us are at home. So good on the staff for asking for a pay rise.
A pay rise yes , but not 16 per cent,!!!!
The cost of any pay rise will be passed onto us the customer’s, then we are poorer so why does no one understand it is the same for for everyone, not just red funnel staff !!!!!
Utilities rise cost of running a business rises prices go up , wages rise , prices go up ….
Inflation will go higher and higher …
Bet the union bosses won’t lose money, but the staff that strike will !!!!!!
Well done 16per cent is bang out of order I’m a night worker that works 10 hours a night for a little over 10 pounds an hour and have to either put up or shut up can’t believe the amount of idiots that support 16per cent rise
Well I work nights for a little over 10 quid an hour and yes I agree you do deserve a rise but 16 per cent is bang out of order but I don’t have the privilege of a union fighting my corner
now theres a way to make ferry prices even higher, get why they need to strike, but it will need to much higher ferry prices
Will we notice any change to the service if the staff go on strike i do not thnk so.
16% increase! Madness! The left wing unionists will stop at nothing to bring the country to a halt and blame it on the government. 16% increase, plus pension contributions and higher employers NI contribution etc. means at least 20%. That will mean fares increase of at least 20%. Result, people will travel less, fewer holiday visitors, less revenue, cut back the now unaffordable services and some of you will lose your jobs. Get real!
When gov told me this year I have to pay +£2000 in NICs this year, I just told my company I want compensation for that. So yeah, at least that’s on the government.
And the inflation – to keep same quality of life throughout the years, your pay rise must at least be equal to inflation rate. Otherwise you have a pay cut in real terms.
If that’s what they want to do.Fine.Sack them all.Theres plenty of people needing jobs out there.
Not trained deck staff there isn’t. Brexit saw to that.
You can’t keep blaming brexit , all the European countries are having similar problems , the airlines etc….
Brexit is just an excuse !!!!
Brexit isn’t the main drive behind inflation but it does adds to the power dynamic of how employees can REACT to that inflation:
“take control of our borders” = tougher immigration rules = less workers, including skilled ones = labour shortage = it is hard to replace people = more power to the strike action
Brexit was supposed to bring better pay for employees and it’s doing so. It’s just British customers who have to pay for it.
Stop kidding yourself. We are predicted to have the highest inflation and lowest growth in the G7 and reason we are worse off than the EU countries in the G7 (Germany, France and Italy) is entirely down to Brexit.
According to the OECD Brexit is responsible for around 2.5% of our 11% inflation, which is why we are 2nd only to Russia in the poorest performing economics in the G20.
So, yeah, we can blame Brexit.
They are losing staff hand over fist because of the shift patterns and low wages. Workers at Aldi are earning £3000per annum more than the CSAs on Red Funnel and don’t work the shift patterns that Red Funnel force on their employees
They have already been trying to get staff! Especially for night shifts and shock, nobody would do it once they saw it was for just over £9 an hour and who would? So they got agency staff in to do it for nearly double that. so I can definitely see the staffs reason to strike!
I hope none of them has an injury which prevents them working ‘at sea’ and they have to get a shop job. The reality check in wage decrease would scare the life out of them!
And how exactly are the travelling public going to notice the difference between Industrial Action and cancellations caused by routine poor service???
A strike ? Excellent news- another nail in the coffin for ferries, and another tiny step closer for that fixed link. Brilliant!
I can’t stand the people in the camp of ” well, I’m poor, so everyone else should be”.
Shocking attitudes. The people in charge are really winning with ‘Divide and Conquer’. Do NOT play into their hands. We have to support each other. Fight the fat cats; not each other
Brexit was supposedly all about taking control of the borders so that waves of immigrants don’t take away jobs from Britons and thus wages are not driven down but up.
It obviously gave a lot more power to existing employees so – when tough times like those recent came – they can easily strike cause replacing them is hard. There aren’t many skilled workers around.
Who did you think was going to pay for that better salary? Customers 😉
I already got 2 pay rises this year already (+£20k) to compensate me for NICs rise on high-tax payers and inflation. Company has no way of replacing me due to labour shortage. We’ll just raise prices.
Perhaps the ones on here who want to sack them should go and work for Red Funnel for a week at their rate of pay and the shift patterns they are expected to work.Such a selfish attitude to take when these people put their health and the health of their families at risk by working through a pandemic in order to keep essential coming to the Island.Try picking on the fat cats that have big salaries and get huge bonuses.
I got a book from red funnel yesterday with some money of deals. They had a page boasting of their 85% punctuality. If I delivered 85% of my projects for customers I would be out of business.
Redjet, 90% reliability. That is awful, one in ten are cancelled. There was a time the management would have been fired for a record that bad. Would you keep your job if every two weeks you didn’t go to work?