:scalating jobs dispute )aralyses container bases
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'CM reporter
:KETING by dockers counter-picketing by irehousemen and vers have effectively loped the operation of ti East London ntainer terminals. rhaps incensed by nours that dockers ended to apply for hgv mces and undertake ditional lorry work :hin seven miles of the
ks, drivers have now ied the job-saving ion of the warehousen employed at the mts (CM last week). )espite growing ications that their WU driver colleagues ,re prepared to :hange blow for blow a labour relations Jggle, the dockers ,e continued to picket
and on Monday the acking" campaign in iport of more jobs on itamer work spread to luny.
. mass meeting of )0 Tilbury dockers ed overwhelmingly to :k the unofficial lpaign following a ech by Mr David rks, a militant Royal 'up shop steward. He I the dockers that the vernment were ling on their promise xtend the dock labour eme and reminded the Nd that the labour :e of 23,000 in 1962 I now shrunk to 000.
he biggest containere operator, Conrerbase Ltd, now )1Iy owned by Dyers Containers and Associated Container Transportation — the former association of British Rail and the
National Freight Corporation with the Federation has ended — is critically affected at its two London bases, at Barking and Chobham Farm, though Mr John Reid, managing director, assured CM that a national Press report with the headline: "Pickets threaten £3.5m expansion" was misleading.
Mr Reid said that the Chobham and Barking bases had been at a standstill for eight days, though picketing by dockers had lasted for three weks. Hauliers were now refusing to bring empty containers into the affected depots and containers already packed with groupage consignments for export could not be moved because of the picketing by dockers and the not very effective counter picketing by drivers. "We are not very popular with our customers whose goods have missed ships" said Mr Reid, 'but our two East London companies are innocent by-standers. The militants want every single job — and we employ many ex-dockers already — for dockers. It is the 'Us in, you out' mentality of 1972 Chobham Farm dispute all over again."
Mr Reid is taking every possible step to try to resolve the situation that is paralysing the con" mercial viability of his East London operations. He is in touch with the Department of Employment, the Conciliation and Arbitration Service and with Mr Peter Shea, a TGWU docks officer. Mr Reid was hopeful that a mass meeting of dockers to be addressed by Mr Bert Fry, a TGWU divisional organiser, would resolve the situation. "Quite evidently, many labour relations troubleshooters are trying hard to sort things out behind the scenes."
Meanwhile road haulage drivers who claim that nearly 150 haulage companies are now on the dockers "cherry blossom" list plan to extend their counter-picketing operations.