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DOCKLANDS DISPUTE

13th April 1989, Page 5
13th April 1989
Page 5
Page 5, 13th April 1989 — DOCKLANDS DISPUTE
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

• "Anachronistic. . . outdated. . . restrictive. . . jobs for life . . ." The leader writers have certainly been having a field day on the subject of the proposed abolition of the National Dock Labour Scheme, with vitriolic adjectives filling their pages.

Regardless of the countless, and hopefully apocryphal stories of dockers being paid to do nothing, there are few hauliers who will mourn the passing of the National Dock Labour Scheme — but not because they have any axe to grind against the dockers themselves. They simply feel that the industry is long overdue for the kind of reforms in industrial relations that the road transport industry has already undergone.

And if the supporters of the National Dock Labour Scheme have any doubt as to its effect on the trade of those ports covered by the scheme then they only have to look at how much business has passed through non-registered ports during recent years. The customers, and the hauliers, have been voting with their feet.

The Transport and General Workers' Union national docks committee is now committed to a ballot calling for a national strike. Unfortunately any industrial action in favour of the National Dock Labour Scheme will only stimulate the Government's resolve to remove it, along with the final vestiges of the TGWU's power on the docks.

If there is a strike then hauliers forced to use registered ports will once again be caught in the middle of a battle between two dogmas, just as they were in the miners' strike.

The key, of course, will be whether the non-registered dockers feel any solidarity with their registered counterparts. Whatever the result of any ballot there will be little sympathy from road hauliers. They have already moved into the twentieth century and see no reason why the dockers and the TGWU shouldn't do the same.


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