London stoppage ends Dockers thoughtful over return

LONDON DOCKERS yesterday voted two to one to end the stoppage which has crippled the enclosed docks for the last five days.

At an hour-long mass meeting inside the Victoria Dock, men from the Royals, Tilbury, India and Millwall rejected a proposal from 18-man committee to continue the stoppage.

The committee proposed that the meeting reaffirm the policy, decided by a mass meeting last month, to withdraw from flexible manning arrangements because of dissatisfaction with a £2.60 pay offer.

If the dispute were continued, committee members claimed, support would be given by dockers working London's riverside wharts.

It was also suggested that countrywide backing might neur be gained from a meeting of the national port shop stewards' committee in Birmingham today.

But union officials insisted that the dockers' struggle was not political -and not a single member of the 18man committee intervened to disagree.

This handed a powerful weapon to the right wingers who had argued that the game was not worth the candle since no more money could be won by the kind of limited struggle in which the enclosed docks were engaged.

As a result sufficient uncertainty was created in the meeting to swing the vote against going on with the Thus the 1,500 men will return to work on Monday 12-- 1---ending the last of the curto the Tory pay laws. 5,000 rent threats from the docks Some 4,000 dockers attended yesterday morning's meeting. It was one of the biggest such meetings in recent years.

The recommendation of the 18-man committee, which comprises members of both the Transport and General Workers' Union and the National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers, was put by chairman Maurice Foley.

In essence this is that dockers accept principle DETAIL EPHONE 522 7029 of the Tory state pay laws by taking the employers' government-controlled offer of £2.60 plus 4 per cent on differential payments.

But they will "devalue' existing agreements with the employers by demanding extra men in gangs but refusing to do more than one job per shift.

Both Peter Shea, T&GWU London docks secretary, and Les Newman, of the NAS&D, supported the committee's recommendation.

And a number of floor speakers, including_NAS&D steward Mickey Fenn, supporter of "The Dockworker" 'rank-and-file' paper associated with the International Socialists group, welcomed the officials' attitude.

After the meeting several stewards began blaming rank-and-file dockers for the vote, ridiculing suggestions that the union leaders and the policy of the 18-man committee were in any way at fault.

But the ending of the enclosed docks stoppage is in no way the finish of the employers' and the government's problems on the docks.

Most dockers were in an extremely thoughtful mood after yesterday's vote.

A central talking-point was the kind of leadership now required to win future big battles.

These will centre on the growing use of non-registered labour, the introduction of 'casual' labour and attacks on the Dock Labour Scheme.

As one steward commented: 'You can't accept state control of wages and then expect men to follow you uncritically into an isolated struggle on some other issue.

'We need a united fight of all ports - together • with other sections of workers in struggle - directed at the main issue before the working class, getting rid of the Tory government?

their pay laws