Progress in the Ports?
Page 59
Page 60
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
ROAD HAULIERS cannot be indifferent to labour relations in the ports of this country. On all sides manufacturing industry is exhorted to export—and that must mean that the first leg of the transit overseas is by road vehicle. Docks delays are so much an everyday matter that only the most dramatic hold-up merits much publicity in the national Press.
The containerbase manning problem at the Aintree and Orsett terminals may have been resolved with the surrender by road haulage members of the Transport and General Workers Union of their rights under a national agreement to be considered for jobs at the terminals. Dockers cannot be blamed for fearing mass redundancies as containerization makes increasing inroads into traffic formerly carried by conventional vessels. If the logic spelled out in the notorious McKinsey Report cOrnmissioned by the British Transport Docks Board was followed ruthlessly there would ultimately be thousands of redundant dockers.
It is rather surprising to note that some port employers are now saying that containerization does not represent a threat to the employment of dockers; that ancillary activities such as container repairs, leasing of equipment, cargo consolidation, etc., will absorb many dockers formerly employed on berths. The success of firms like Fred Olsen Lines whose unit loading methods (using fork-lift trucks which drive straight into ship holds via side-ports) are so popular with road hauliers may slow down the impact of containerization. Nothing succeeds in transport like success—and Fred Olsen will soon have imitators.
Union leaders' attitude
The Olsen systerrt is much more labourintensive than a containerized system but it utilizes much less capital. It is not surprising that such influential trade union leaders as Mr. Tom Cronin, of the TGWU, welcome the success of Fred Olsen Lines at Millwall, and hope that the techniques employed there will widely be copied elsewhere in the London port complex.
So much appears in Press and on TV and radio about labour relations that many are becoming infinitely bored by the whole subject. The bad and stupid strikes are given
overwhelming publicity while progressive improvements are unsung. Road hauliers as a body have frequently had every justification in complaining about undue dock delays and this right will no doubt be exercised for as long as is necessary. But it is important to get things into perspective.
De-casualization in the docks did not get off to a very good start. There was an eight-week strike in London at its inception which cost more than 200,000 man-days. It is right, however, to point out that the 252,126 man-days lost in London in 1967 fell to 12,793 in 1968.
'Trigger happy' dockers
It is less satisfactory to note that there were 50 stoppages in London in 1968 compared with 31 in 1967. If decasualization has produced a generally more settled working atmosphere. with less chance of a general stoppage, the increased number of local disputes shows that many dockers are still "trigger happy". This certainly applies at Liverpool where there were 80 disputes in 1968 and only 28 in 1967. Altogether, Liverpool lost more than three times as many man-days in strikes as London, some 39,042 days. if that is a disgrace, as many believe, it is some consolation that the previous year Liverpool dockers were on strike for no less than 288,798 days, or 24 days per man. Last year's 3+ days per man certainly represents a marked improvement.
Inadequate pay is often said to be the cause of strikes. The latest report of the National Dock Labour Board shows that in the last quarter of 1968 average wages for dockers was £29 14s 7d for a 45.4 hour week. Better wages following from decasualization brought dock stoppages nationally down from 571,578 man-days in 1967 to 74,439 days in 1968. There is still a long way to go but much haS surely been achieved. With wages at such levels for what by road haulage standards is a short working week it is not surprising that drivers whose take home pay is a lot less than £29 get restive.
Whatever we may think about the merits of dockers' average earnings last year, shocks are in store. Fred Olsen Lines first agreed a package deal yielding £29 a week to the 240 men employed at their Millwall and West India berths two years ago. I recently attended the signing of a new productivity agreement with the Transport and General Workers Union yielding £39 a week for the top-rate dockers on a two six-hour shift day.
The Olsen productivity agreement discussions began on April Fools' Day and came into force on Bastille Day, July 14. The agreement provides for a three-tier wage structure which seems, in principle, to offer attractions to road transport employers. Both industries employ a considerable proportion of older men many of whom through illness, injuries or general infirmity are incapable of keeping up with the energetic youngsters. The Fred Olsen concern are to pay "light duty" men £26 a week. Dockers working on the quay will get £34 and all-duty men prepared to work as required on docks or ship will earn £39 a week.
In any firm where there are such pay disparities grievancies could be expected if there were no agreed procedures for settling them. At Millwall Fred Olsen Lines operate a very live system of regular joint consultation meetings and local differences can be brought to the attention of the general manager, Mr. Michael Thompson, immediately. Any docker employee who wishes to apply for the all-duty men's higher pay is at liberty to have an independent doctor's assessment of his fitness for the more arduous and responsible work.
At the Press conference arranged to launch the Olsen productivity deal many questions were put to Mr. Tom Cronin, the TGWU officer who negotiated its details, as to the effects on other port employers. Was this settlement going to contribute to peace in dockland or would it exacerbate labour troubles?
Example to employers
Mr. Cronin very much hoped that it would be an example to other employers in dockland not only in London. He stressed that comparisons with pay at Millwall would be grossly unfair if the comparison did not extend to what the men actually did on the Olsen berths. His description of the rooted conservatism of some dock employers in London insisting on gangs of a given size, often 12 men, regardless of the nature of the unloading operation when it was mere common sense for two men to be employed on a compact heavy lift case and perhaps 16 men for some types of loose cargo, was the more convincing coming from a man brought up in the docks and earning his living as a docker before becoming a trade union officer.
Mr. Thompson is quoted in The Port newspaper: "We are naturally concerned at the attitude of the other employers. They are reacting rather violently to our plan. The danger is that we will be viewed in the light of the other employers. They will not look at our deal on its own."
Mr. Thompson had met two employers' leaders, Mr. John Kiernan and Mr. John Hovey, and had pointed out that his men were already earning more than the other employers were offering in the enclosed docks for two-shifts-a-day working. He had hoped that the agreement for the enclosed docks would have been negotiated before the Olsen deal had been concluded. By coincidence, this had not happened.
Said Mr. Thompson: "We are asking our men to do far more than the other employers are. It obviously has not been easy to get this deal agreed. I wouldn't say the men exactly jumped for joy at the prospect of shiftwork, but we explained to them very carefully why it was needed. And I must pay tribute to the way the Transport Union officer, Mr. Tom Cronin, reacted to these proposals. We have had our differences but we are thinking along the same lines.
"We at Olsen's, are going forward all the time. Not only are we paying our men good money, but we are pouring capital into the port. The number of new sheds that are going up is evidence of that. We are also providing our men with their own restaurant and special clothing for the job.
Expenditure justified "We are not asking for any financial assistance from the other employers for any of these. We are not out to antagonize anyone else. All we want is to be left alone."
Mr. Thompson gave some figures at the Press conference to justify the investment of £ on new buildings at Millwall. Two years ago when the £29-a-week package deal was negotiated the tonnage handled was 107,000 tons. The following year this had risen to 204,000 tons and the target this year is 304,000 tons—and all this with the same labour force. Did not this justify the investment and prove the soundness of the working relationships established at Millwall, he asked.
It is worth noting that at Millwall the first two-year productivity deal operated very smoothly with a minimum of labour unrest. A few men stopped work during the Enoch Powell controversy and some were concerned in the May Day protest about the proposed penal strike legislation. In comparison with many other dock employers Olsen had little trouble. It is unusual for employers to pay more than lip service to the contribution of employees to making a productivity scheme work but Mr. Thompson was unstinted in his praise and gave some practical examples. The way to make progress is for both sides to trust each other, he said. "We, for our part recognize that we must give more responsibility to active trade union members in our workforce."
Break-through?
At many docks with a nominal starting time of 8 a.m. at the dock gates it may be as late as 8.45 a.m. before work work commences at berths. For all kinds of traditional reasons we can cease at 11.40 a.m. for the lunch break, instead of 12 noon. The Fred Olsen agreement calls for the first shift to be available for work on the berth at 7 a.m. and work continues with a single half-hour break—until 1.30 p.m. Formerly, there were mid-morning breaks for tea, but these have been abandoned in the new agreement. The afternoon shift will run from 1.30 p.m. to 8 p.m.—again with a single half-hour break.
This agreement to work shift-work could be the break-through the docks have wanted for many years. The agreement provides for voluntary Sunday shifts when necessary to speed a ship turn-round. Generous sickness benefits-10 guineas a week for 12 weeks—and the opportunity for dockers to contribute to a superannuation scheme yielding realistic retirement pay are features of the Olsen deal.
When Mr. Cronin was asked if time and motion experts had played any part in the new agreement he reacted warmly. "No such expert tells us what to do in dockland. Our experience and knowledge of the industry—in my case from childhood—is much more significant." But Mr. Cronin was not a traditionalist in matters of work organization. "If one man is more mechanically minded than another he should drive the fork-lift truck. The strong chaps are better on the loose cargo. In terms of flexibility, we've offered the employers everything we can offer."
I asked Mr. Thompson how the productivity at Millwall compared with that at other Olsen terminals on the Continent. His reply surprised me, for I once visited an Olsen berth at Rotterdam and was amazed at the speed of work on the berth. Mr. Thompson assured me that in terms of tons handled per man hour his men at Millwall were working faster than on the Continent. What is happening at Millwall would be understandable if the work force there was an exceptionally docile sector of dockers. Mr. Cronin said that far from this being the case the Millwall dockers at the Canary Wharf had always been among the most militant of all London dockers. A number of Olsen employees serving on the works committee were present at the signing of the agreement—indeed they counter-signed it—and it was very evident from their comments that docility was not part of their nature. They made it very clear that they were behind the Olsen management in the revolutionary methods and attitudes displayed which contrasted so markedly with the outlook of other dock employers and workers. "We've been taken over to Norway to see the chaps working there. Their system does not compare with ours," said one member of the works committee.
Public transport A two-shift system has been introduced at the Port of London Authority's rail container terminal at Tilbury, covering the hours from 6.45 a.m. to 9.15 p.m. daily, from Monday to Friday inclusive. Fourteenman teams handle the truck-trailer service to and from the berths. After the first week's operation the men agreed—I quote The Port newspaper—that if shiftwork becomes general in dockwork then public transport will have to be greatly improved. Without cars to get them to and from work some of the men would have faced a five-mile walk.
Everyone in road transport would agree in principle that shift working offers greater prospects of profitable operation at a time of fast-increasing costs. It is a paradox that the London dockers—if the Olsen and Tilbury freightliner terminal staff are to prove typical—are giving a national lead on a crucial matter. If industry generally would consider shift working, at least as regards dispatch and reception staffs—road hauliers would be greatly relieved.
Let no one pretend that in these days of abundant leisure such revolutions are easily accomplished. Said one docker, Mr. Fred Norman, quoted by The Port: "I know shiftwork has got to come although I don't agree with it, to be frank .... But you have to make little sacrifices. I have to get up 45 minutes earlier which means my wife as well. It also means I can't take my child to school like I used to.
"If I'm on the evening shift I can't go for a drink in the evening. But if I'm on the morning one I might have to do the shopping in the afternoon—something I've never had to do in 33 years in the docks. But I realize that if you pay for expensive machinery it must be used all the time to be economical."