One-day strike call from Mersey Council

A ONE-DAY General Strike in support of the dockers and building workers has been backed in principle by Liverpool Trades Council.

Fifty delegates have agreed to call a special meeting of all Merseyside shop stewards next Tuesday to plan the day of protest during which a solidarity march will be staged in the city centre.

The stewards are expected to ask their members to stop work for the day on Thursday.

Appealing for the Trades Council's support for Merseyside's 10,000 dockers,. port steward Jimmy Nolan told delegates at Thursday night's meeting:

'We feel it is essential to get the support of all active trade unionists. We're fighting for our jobs like any other working Nolan said Liverpool dockers handled 13 million tons of cargo a year, 50 per cent by only 500 dockers dealing exclusively with container traffic.

He said: 'If the port employers get their way they will expect 1,000 men to handle the whole 13 million and 9,000 dockers will lose their jobs.

'We are on unofficial strike because the union has let us down.

As far as we are concerned we've got no other way out of this problem. We say to the port employers and the Tory government-we don't want promises, we want guarantees.

Audience at Thursday's Trades Councll meeting would like information about "The recommendations of the Jones-Aldington committee had to be rejected. We have attempted in the past to negotiate with port users and ship owners but now they are not prepared to come to any type of agreement on the question of job security.

"It is essential for the dockers to get the support of all trade unionists, because next week troops could be used. We propose the recall of Liverpool Central Hall shop stewards' meeting and a demonstration throughout icity against the emergency powers and against the Industrial Relations Act.' The day of protest was given strong backing by builders' leader, UCATT official Bill Doherty.

He said: 'We are engaged in a very bitter struggle ith the most vicious employers in he country.' The theme of the one-day strike and march will be the right to work.

Deputy chairman of Liverpool Race Relations Commission, Ludvic Hesse, asked the meeting to ensure the protest embraced the problem of youth employment, which he claimed was the cause of recent disturbances in the Toxteth district of the city.

Delegate Bill Hunter pressed the council to make the one-day strike the beginning of a sustained campaign to bring down the Tory government and return a Labour government forced to carry out socialist policies.

He told the meeting: 'You can-. not separate the dockers and the builders, and what happened at Toxteth. from strategy