Hire-and- fire threat sparks docks row

HIRE-and-fire discipline will now be seeen by many portworkers as their employers' next objective under Phase Two of the Devlin docks 'modernization' scheme.

A major battle with rank-and-file dockers can be expécted over the influential London Ocean Trades Employers' demand for powers to sack workers they think are unfit.

It will certainly strengthen the Merseyside men's determination to resist Phase Two terms proposed by employers The attitude of top union chiefs nationally, however, is by no means so certain.

No attack' A London port employers' spokesman claimed yestérday that the severance call implied pathetic no attack on the 1947 national dock labour scheme. of their ndustria The employers' argument is that a ruling allowing compulsory severance of the 22 per cent of London dockers they describe as unfit should be made by the National • Dock Labour Board 'for their own sakes', and could be done without interfering with the schéme.

It is difficult to square this, however, with the context in which Ocean Trades Employers' chairman Стат clear Dermot jewitt chose to pre sent his Wednesday night call for "some form of compulsor) severance'.

We return to Devey's •Discipline' Introducing a report on 1! first three months of Phas Two in London, Jewitt claime: that shiploading and discharge: speeds have dropped by 21 and 33 percent respectively. district secretary, Some 24 hours of each 6zhour working shift were being entirely wasted, he said.

He insisted that no form of GOVT

In his message Mr Crawford claims that to concede a 10 per cent wage increase during the next year would mean profits of £600,000 which are well below the £2m target level.

Management feels the works are threatened by cheaper Japanese steel and the coastal steel works in Britain which make use of richer foreign ores.

Corby is a major producer of steel tubes-annual output amounts to some 18,000 tons —and together with the quarrying, blast furnaces and steel plant, closures would virtually mean the economic destruction of the town.

In June and July last year Corby craftsmen struck : for better bonus rates and reluctantly accepted certain productivity strings for a £l-aweek increase.

Clearly redundancy threats are being used now by management in a crude attempt to force through a major productivity deal which would undoubtedly reduce the labour force and mean speed-up for those that remain in the plant.

Similar deals are being implemented by the Corporation's steel works as part of the 'green paper' reorganization of works practices.

A drive for profitability would also fit in with the government's plans to carry through some form of denationalization of steel.

One of the schemes being considered by the Cabinet is the so-called BP solution', which would leave the Corporation intact, but allow half the shares to be held by private investors and under the Tories only the profitable sectors would be open to private finance.