£8,000 ends Brum dispute
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A PAYMENT of £8,000 has brought the 11-week dispute at the Birmingham Containerbase to an end (CM, last week). Management agreed to make the payment in return for clearing-up operations at the base to get rid of a 1,000 tons backlog of work.
The strikebound depot— where more than 50 trucks were trapped and two haulage companies forced to close— opened for normal business on Monday and the management intended to begin random searches of employees. It was this issue that sparked off the dispute—though it later became stalemated over strike pay.
Mr Eric Sharrock, manager of the Containerbase, vehemently denied to CM this week that the £8,000 was in lieu of pay to the 70 men involved in the strike.
It had been made as a contract payment for the clear-up work. This occupied Thursday, Friday and Saturday morning and was undertaken by volunteers consisting of about a third of the labour force, Mr Alan Law, Birmingham's TGWU boss, this week talked to CM about the Containerba.se dispute for the first time. He explained that the £8,000 would be paid to Branch 525's own funds and would be distributed to the men involved. "I fully appreciate that men on strike are not usually paid," he said, " but this dispute was different."
Mr Law said that £7,000 of the money would be divided equally between the 70 men and the other £1,000 would be split between the 20 men who volunteered to clear-up.
The search issue was now settled, 'said Mr Law, because management had accepted that any searches must be made during working hours. "This was the problem throughout," he said.