'We should have defeated Act at birth'-Mersey dockers

face dockers in the port of Liverpool when they hold a mass meeting next Sunday, and behind both of these looms an even bigger one: what to do about the Tory governImmediately the employers plan to slash the present dock labour force by just over 7 per cent nationally this year and there is the local containers row which erupted into the National Industrial Relations Court last week.

On Merseyside this weekend, a frequently-expressed opinion among militants was that neither would be a threat had their union leaders fought the "Tories correctly.

It would be 'poetic justice' if the dockers now found themselves in the front line of a struggle to destroy the Act, said Transport and General Workers' Union member Frank Hughes.

'After all, we should have done it in the first place. We could have done it. But when you think back over what happened, what action did our so-called leaders lead? Two one-day strikes • • . I ask you.

'What's happening now proving wrong all those people who said we shouldn't fight the Act while it was going through; that we'd be better placed when it was in, when the handcuffs were on. 'Now it's got to be faced, however. We can't stop them breaking up the union without getting rid of the Tories.' Docker-checker Frank, who works towards the North end of the port's seven miles of docks, is a Labour Party activist standing for the city council next time Looking out over the ward from his council-flat home, he lists the burning problems facing workers there: mice have now reached the top floor of a nearby 20-storey block, and, of course, the rents are going up. For him the struggle on the docks and the fight against the Tory Housing Finance Bill are interlinked.

He has no-time for those who refuse to tell the truth to the working class: Labour leaders both nationally and locally, his union leaders-and even some of the stewards on the docks.

'Containerization's a big thing' he says of the issue which sparked the court action by Heaton's Transport (St Helens) Ltd.

Redundancy

For the stewards to spoon feed people and say these new methods won't mean a big redundancy problem is a lot of nonsense. After all half the docks are going to close in the near future [the South end of the port is due to shut down in August].

"To say that voluntary redundancy will take care of the position is ridiculous. It ignores the effect on the national unemployment figures. And it's this high unemployment these haulage firms are taking advantage of: employing people at. starvation wages to stuff and strip containers.' It was Jake Abbott, a T&GWU steward working for Smith Coggins Ltd, who first raised the latter issue.

The unemployment threat was not so serious on Liverpoól docks as in London, he told me, because 400 older dockers had recently taken voluntary severance payments of f2,000 each. second list of those prepared to go out of the industry. was already. being compiled. .... MERSEYSIDE dockers face an anxious ten-day wait for the final verdict of the National Industrial Relations Court on their 'black' against two haulage and warehousing firms. If their action is ruled an unfair industrial practice by the NIRC, the union to which most of the port's 10,000 men belong could face a substantial fine under the Industrial Relations Act.

The court has already imposed a £5,000 fine on the Transport and General Workers' Union for contempt of an interim order to stop the blacking. It has until April 12— the same day as the full hearing of the case to show why it should not pay. After that the union will have just three weeks' grace before the bailiffs move in to seize its entire assets and take the money by court order.

At the root of this row is the fear of redundancy. A joint committee of T&GWU road-transport and docks' stewards on Merseyside have been fighting for an agreement which would give drivers, a guaranteed £21-£24 weekly minimum and make the stuffJack and other stewards spoke to also defended a decision of the national stewards' committee-taken in Southampton just over two weeks ago-to shelye their demand for nationalization of the ports under workers' control.

•Men who are fighting redundancy are not going to be too interested if you start talking to them about the importance of workers' control', he said.

But Tack went on: 'Çontainerization is building up rapidly, and if we're going to avoid problems in the future we've got to get a grip of it now.

'You've got haulage firms buying up odd bits of land and spending out £30,000-odd to build sheds for stuffing containers. To get that back they have to keep their rates low.

'That's why the road-transport stewards and the docks lads had to get together to decide a comdocker Policy: containers mon contate are work, drivers must all be union members on a minimum of £21-£24 a week.

•But of course this isn't what's being argued in court. The Act's Labourites split on rents Ja.

MANY Labour councils, under massive pressure from tenants, have said they will not implement the Tory 'fair rents' Bill if it becomes law:

Now, as tenants themselves begin to take action against the Tories, some councillors are backtracking on their declared aims.

One Labour council having second thoughts is Wandsworth in South London. The Labour group is now split on whether to defy the Bill or not.

'Democracy and law come before party politics,' Cllr. Dr Brian Prichard was reported as saying last week.

He added: 'The move to refuse to implement the Bill will not through council. The Tories will vote in favour of implementing it and so will we. Refusing to implement it is the wrong way to govern at local level.' Another prominent member of the Labour majority backing Cllr Dr Prichard is Cllr Fred Shaw, deputy mayor:

'I feel a strong obligation to the citizens of Wandsworth. I have always said I shall vote to implement the Bill when it becomes law. I shall never vote to break the law. I think the others will come round to your way of thinking,' he said.

The fact that the Labour leadership in Wandsworth has offered no real lead in the fight against the Housing Finance Bill has led to some confusion among its 23,000 tenants.

'There is no point in them having meetings about the Bill through, can tell us it will go Bruce Forbes, chairman of the housing committee of the Arndale Tenants Association in Wandsworth, said.

The council have called another meeting for April 10 to provide an opportunity for. our in, so what happened at Gladstone is an unfair industrial practice. The union couldn't turn up at court because of the TUC policy so it's in contempt.

'Some of these firms should be told the Tory government won't be in for ever.' Both the union leadership and the shop stewards came in for criticism from John McGinnes, a T&GWU member from the South end of Liverpool docks.

'Dockers could have defeated the Industrial Relations Bill', he said. 'But the leadership wasn't 'Then we've had stewards telling us at mass meetings that the Tory government couldn't be allowed to run its full term of office, but never lifting a finger to help the miners. If anything was an issue which could have kicked the Act in the head, that was.

I don't think the importance of what's happening now has hit people yet.

'You see, it's not just containerization on its own. If. there was a trade boom that wouldn't cause redundancy.

Flat/house 3-bedrm hse, 2-bedrm flat, 5-bedrm flat, 2-bedrm flat, Bed-sitti 2-bedrm flat, Containerization is one of the biggest factors behind the employers' drive to slash the 42,000-strong national register of dockers by 3,000 this year.

In London, the employers have been using the present trade slump in attempts to push men into the unattached labour pool, where they receive only f20 a week from the Dock Labour Board. An appeal by 20 men employed by the stevedoring firm T. Wallis Smith Coggins has been made a test case by the national port stewards' committee. Dockers in most big ports are committed to strike from the end of this week-April 7Into an already tense situation on Britain's docks, therefore, the NIRC tossed the legal implications of the Industrial Relations Act.

Our industrial correspondent DAVID MAUDE has been in Liverpool talking to the men from the seven miles of Mersey Forbes at home with his fam tenants to find out how they may be affected and to have their say on this vital issue'.

Bruce was also critical of the Labour Party national leadership performance on the issue.

'Harold Wilson spoke for a quarter of an hour on television the other week and never mentioned rents once I don't think. He seemed to spend most of his time making fun of Heath.

'But the only person who's going to come off good from this Bill is the private landlord. No more new houses will be built with the money the Tories get from us.

'What you could finish up with is the rich living in houses like these with perhaps the councils selling off blocks of flats to private owners.

'If they double the rents it's going to push people out their homes. Talk about homeless now, it'll get a lot Daleside Rd, SW16 Gaitskell Ct, SW11 Henry Prince Estate, Jean Hse, SW17 om flat, McKiernan ( Ritherdon Rd, SW17 ing of cargo-containers dockers' work. if these men are returned to the pool. docks about the questions facing them.

'But you can't fight either unemployment or the Act if you don't start from the crisis of capitalism.' Billy O'Hara, also South end, agreed.

'It's nonsense to say there's no redundancy problem here', he said. 'Once you get a number of contractors turning over the containers there's a big increase in the amount of surplus labourand it'll happen overnight.' On the subject of the Industrial Relations Act, he stressed: 'It's not enough to say get the government out.

'What happens then? We know what the Labour leadership is. We've got to know that the Act will be repealed.' Known for a long period for their militancy, the Liverpool dockers stand at a cross-roads.

Most of the conditions in which militancy alone won through now lie behind them. In front stands the Tory government, prepared to give all-out assistance to employers whose profits are at stake. All side roads lead to the dole queue. worse the way things are going.

'And most elderly people won't be able to afford to live in nice flats. They gave them 75p in the Budget but it won't be worth anything with the rent increases.

'As for the means test, many people will consider them to be charity and I'm sure won't apply for them. Anyway, you could fill in a means test when you're on plenty of overtime.

'Then it could drop back and you'd be left with that rent until the end of six months. It seems diabolical to have to fill in a form declaring your income every six months.' Bruce already pays £6.50 a week-including rates-for his flat on a new estate built above a shopping centre. He has just had a 24p rate increase.

'Everyone is given the impression that council tenants don't pay rates. Well, mine come. to £1.52 a week,' he said, showing Net f Gros 3.46 4.47 3.98 5.73 3.60 4.67 3.03 3.89 2.30 3.20 - 3,31 4.28 'Fair' rents Net f JACK ABBOTT JOHN MCGINNES There are definite pointers to which path they will take however.

Some 24 hours after Sir John Donaldson fined the T&GWU £5,000 for contempt last Wednesday morning, two red lorries from Heaton's fleet stood outside the gates of Gladstone dock. One carried a load of Pilkington glass.

At 4 p.m.—as dockers began drifting home for the holiday weekend-they were still there. Perhaps as a company spokesman suggested the port was too busy: We shall see tomorrow me a form he had just received asking if he would like a rate rebate.

You virtually have to be a pauper to claim a rate rebate. Under the government scheme a single man has to be earning less than £12 a week before he can apply for a rebate. For a married man it is f14.75 a week plus £2.50 for each child.

I should think there is only one way to fight this Bill and that is for the unions to back us up and for the Labour Party to fight instead of saying the Bill is going through.

'If you could get a situation where the country • comes to a standstill you might see the Tories call another election. But you can't seem to get any real answers from the Labour Party on what their housing policies would be atter the election.

'Harold Wilson said there should be a General Election on the Common Market but he should also start talking about the rents question and he would soon get the support.

'But I can't see us refusing to pay the rent increases. That could only be successful if it was 100 per cent and had backing from elsewhere,' said Bruce.

'Another thing that has to be done, though, is to organize private tenants whose rents will go up 250 per cent. No one seems to be doing much about them.

'All I can say is that if this Bill goes through we will be tenants of the government, added Bruce.

Gross 6.75 7.76 7.01 8.76 6.50 7.57 5.45 6.31 4.08 4.98 4.75

4 Monday April 3, 1972 QUESTION: Was the ILP will, if they trust in social • Trotaky. Top: J. R. Clynes. Aorrizon. Below: Baldwin. ernment, and so prevents their