DOCK DRIVE-IN
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Tory amendment allows drivers in dock area
HAULIERS this week wel:icomed the mutilation of the riotorious Dock Work Regulations Bill, especially the .eduction of the five-mile iockers' "corridors of power".
These were to have covered the entire coastline and axtended up major motorways. Now they are limited to just half a mile around major j)orts only.
And among other amendments passed in the Commons Last week was a safeguard for irivers aimed at allowing those whose main employment was on the public roads to drive their vehicles inside the dock areas if they wish.
The Freight Transport As3ociation said it was "relieved", while the Road Haulage Association said it was 'very glad."
An FTA spokesman said: 'The uncertainty of the many jobs concerned within the five-mile corridor has to some Jegree been removed, and this will restore some confidence."
But the Association had reservations: "Efforts to extend the Dock Labour Scheme will do nothing to aid the efficiency of the industry," said the spokesman.
RHA secretary Eric Russell had a word for the Labour Government: "They don't realise they've been saved," he said. "In its original form the Bill would have been a disaster for the economy.
"We are very glad indeed that the five-mile corridor has been reduced to half a mile." Jubilant Tories hailed the defeat of the Bill in its original form as "a victory for common sense" after Employment Secretary Albert Booth ruled out its reintroduction in the old form during the next Parliamentary session.
The move means that the defeat for the Government is likely to stand — even though Prime Minister James Callaghan warned that he may well ask the House of Commons "to change its mind" in the near future.
The amendment to safeguard drivers at ports was introduced by Lord Lyall and is aimed at protecting the roll-on roll-off services. The amendment slipped through the debate without discussion when the Government imposed the guillotine.
Mr Booth has also had his powers to extend the dockers' zones curtailed by the amendments. Under the revised Bill any proposal to extend any zone will now be the subject of a public inquiry. Now the Government is planning to try to pick up the pieces of the legislation and turn it into some sort of sense.
At present the Bill talks of the five-mile corridor in places while elsewhere it refers to a half-mile zone — but the tidying up will be done by the House of Lords.
The Government has promised that it will not invoke the Parliament Act and force the Bill through as long as the Lords do not try to wreck what remains of the measure.