ontainer shippers ■ ay desert Tilbury
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our industrial correspondent wo container companies—Overseas liners Ltd. and Associated Container ;portation—are considering an emer • plan to pull out of the Port of London se of a union refusal to sign a managreement for their £3m berth at rY.
erseas Containers and Associated liner Transportation have both been looking at alternative ports where the European end of their UK-Australia service could be based. The ports include Antwerp, Felixstowe and Southampton. but the most attractive alternative is undoubtedly at Rotterdam where there are ready-made container handling facilities and also spare capacity because of the eight-week US dock strike.
Sir Andrew Crichton, chairman of OCL said: "It would be little short of a disaster if our trade cannot be conducted from London. But I am encouraged by the attitude of the men at Tilbury."
The TGWU maintains that no terminal agreement should be signed if it could lead to redundancy. Mr. Peter Shea, the union's London docks secretary, said that the ban could be lifted if more progress was made on a port productivity scheme and a national severance pay deal.
OSL-ACT plan to use nine container ships to do the work of 40 conventional vessels. As a result, many TGWU officials regard the Tilbury project as a potential trouble-spot giving rise to high redundancy.
Port-wide productivity negotiations and the national-level talks on redundancy payments may be further soured by this ' week's deadlock over moves to discipline nearly 3,000 dockers in the Royal Group of London Docks.