lilitant drivers want peace -but dockers' pickets lust go first
Page 11
Page 12
If you've noticed an error in this article please click here to report it so we can fix it.
L'M reporter
PITE appeals by U drivers' officials to :heir dock colleagues to le "abortive fratricidal ' now crippling the London container nals, it is clear from a made to Tilbury this that the drivers are in aod to back down. document put out by .s' stewards — before ick Jones and Employ Secretary Michael agreed on Monday to p a panel of investii — said that drivers dockers "should be ig together to retain ork we have all lost". iertheless from my visit docks it is obvious that sides are continuing to ilitant and face each across the picket lines. Ty, as well as container at Barking. Pooles and Chobham Farm, !en brought to a virtual still.
vers' leader Eric , lit7 has said that his lers will only lift their ing once the dockers :aken the initiative. taking to me on fay at the docks. Mr 'eston, co-chairman of inofficial South East iner Drivers' Federa>aid that one firm had y laid off 65 drivers any others were about ow suit.
stated that the drivers to contain their ing to the south-east, e warned that if the rs escalated the disthe drivers would be to retaliate, nation f necessary. Mr Weston said he feared that this action would severely hit small haulage companies, causing them to suffer financially and perhaps result in redundancies — ironically just what the drivers are protesting about.
Lorries carrying vital supplies, such as medical equipment or loads including animal feedstuffs, were being let through the picket lines, he said.
Plans for a panel of investigation — to be chaired by Professor Lawrence Hunter of Glasgow University. — were formulated in London on Monday at a meeting between Mr James and Mr Foot. The panel is to "examine the causes and circumstances of the current difficulties affecting the TGWU, the Dagenham Cold Store and associated companies in Ripple Road, Dagenham and F. J. Robertson, and also the effect on employers of registered dock labour in the London area, and report".
After the meeting Mr Jones told [TN's News at Ten programme: "Basically this is not a conflict between drivers and dockers, because drivers agree that dockers should do the work of cargo handling. The difficulties have arisen because of unauthorized .picketing, or blacking as it is called." Mr J ones went on to make a plea to both sides to call off their action — a plea which had previously been ignored.
The Jones-Foot meeting took place against a growing anxiety that the present dispute could grow into a national docks conflict along the lines of the disastrous 1972 stoppage. The enquiry panel is unlikely to report for several weeks and the dispute, which coincides with the dockers' national pay negotiations, could eventually have an effect on lorry drivers' pay.
Dockers are hoping that a consultative document — which Mr Foot is due to issue next month will give substance to their claim that cargo handling within a fivemile radius of docks will be designated to them. The document will set out the Government's proposals to extend the National Dock Labour Scheme to all major ports and wharves. The dockers, it is believed, want the scheme extended to most inland container depots since alternative work for the greatly contracted docks labour force is at the root of the London dispute.
The choice before Mr Foot is to extend the existing Dock Labour Scheme by individual Orders a lengthy process which would certainly invite wholehearted protests from road hauliers and other traders affe or to bring in new tion governing dock employment in all pc container depots.
If new legislation preferred solution it i to reflect the Intern Labour Organizatio cent convention oi workers and dock e rnent. Such legi! would most likely br unregistered ports i overall national schei it could include the independent cor depots, some of whie been sited deliberatel away from the imn proximity of red dock labour.