Turmoil at Tilbury as 200 lorries blockade docks
Page 12
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• Two-hundred lorries blockaded the Tilbury container berth on Wednesday -part of the biggest demonstration yet by lorrymen against the dockers and their campaign for more jobs in container firms outside the docks area.
The entrance was sealed off and only a handful of lorries with perishable goods and grain were allowed through.
The drivers' anger at dockers' pickets was fired by a blacking order against Hayes Transport which operates a cold store depot in Dagenham. A lorrymen's spokesman said they would continue their block
ade until the blacking was called off. Mr David Marks, chairman of the Tilbury dockers' shop stewards' committee, commented: "This won't make any difference. We shall go on with our blacking campaign."
A drivers' shop steward said: "The dockers are getting too big for their boots. For a long time now they have been asking for a fight and now it may be on the cards."
And some fights did break out between drivers and dockers — in most cases brother members of the TGWU.
The move to seal the Royal Group came at a mass meeting later in the afternoon. Said the chairman, Mr Eric Reonitz: "This is a tragedy. We have done everything in our power to keep trade unionism going."
But he added: "From this moment on the docks are black."
Reprieve A one-week reprieve has been granted to more than 100 workers due to be laid off today (Friday) at the Dagenham Storage Company which has been picketed by dockers for three months.
Further reports of the docks dispute on page 12.