Onslaught on London docks jobs

LONDON port employers have mounted a savage campaign to smash the hard core of docks militancy centred the Royals.

They have lost no time in taking advantage of the confusion which has followed the collapse of the national dock strike.

In a hard hitting interview in the 'Journal of Commerce' yesterday, Port ot London Authority dırector john Lunch said the employers' master strategy for modernizing dockland had not changed or even slowed down.

Only a week ago Workers Press warned that the effect of containerization and modernization on London would result in the closure of almost all the Upper Thames enclosed docks by middecade.

Lunch said: '... Tilbury is our main growth-point and has already established itself as the largest container port in the UK Meanwhile the Tory, government has granted permission for the builders' spades to begin their work at Maplin Sands—the allcontainer air-sea terminal at Foulness. due to open in 1976.

We warned that the multimillion-pound Maplin development could threaten jobs even at Tilbury. Lunch told the 'Journal':

...I think many of the customers now establishing themselves at Tilbury for container ro-ro (roll-on, roll-oti) services are doing so with Maplin in mind'.

The port employers have mounted a deliberately-timed di y 12207 14314 - S/SNS PAPERBACKS CENTRE 28 Charlotte St London W1 scare campaign isolate militants.

Instead of referring to the whole of London's upper docks as candidates for closure, Lunch singled out the Royals for the top of the list.

He said. 'Frankly the Royals are a worry to me as they are not providing by and large the same standard of service as the other docks in the system and it is less casy to attract fresh trade to thim.' The Royals are by far the largest complex in the upper docks and if it is hard to attract trade there it must be twice as hard at the Indias or Millwall.

Why not mention them as well? A bid to smash the hub of London docks militancy is the only possible reason.

In line with the move to containers, Lunch said:

'Earlier this year I forecast a continued reduction of conventional cargo-despite our best marketing endeavours-leading in turn to further reductions in conventional cargo as part of our long-term strategy to streamline and concentrate our docks.' He added the sinister threat: 'The economic pattern suggests that the bulk of these berth closures must fall in the Royal docks' There was also a deliberate attempt to isolate the Royals from • the rest of Said Lunch ...nevertheless I am convinced there will be a commercial demand for services in the upper docks in the foreseeable future' In case any dockers believed the employers had been concerned about the effects of the dock strike, "Journal' reporter Poter Green wrote that 'cheerful optiBOOKS @ PERIODICALS @ NEWSPAPERS Bernie Steer appealing for vote of confidence yesterday mism and unshakable confidence' were the hallmarks of Lunch.

Lunch said: 'We still face hard times and the revolution is not spent yet but I believe we are now through the worst of it and can look forward in the next two or three years to a much more stable situation when we will have adapted to the new methods'.

Alongside these conscious attempts to split dockers off from their leaders and smash the power of the Royals the 'Journal' announced that employers at cold store and container depots would turn to mass closure rather than surrender to the dockers' demands.

Wrote Green: 'A leau has already been given by Lord Vestey, who is on record as saying he would rather close Midland Cold Store than sell to PLA. to resist these highly demands.' *These totally irresponsible tactics must be defeated and we are doing all we can collectively and individually to ensure that the dockers do not succeed.

'If it means closing down temporarily or permanently 1 believe the majority of firms caught up so, this bitterness will opt to do this bitterness will opt to do The body-blow comes at end of Green's article.

He writes: 'Observers in dockland believe it will be difficult for Bernie Steer, Vic Turner and others to counter any mass shutdown moves by the container and cold-storage employers. It would be another major rebuff for their tactics following their failure to Reing the national ports strike 'If the militants' p ower can be oroken now, the co ntainer men reason, the industry might then be in a position to wrest control from them and start setting ing docks back on a stable footThis is the strategy of all port employers. With the collapse of the dockers' leadership and the acceptance of the derisory JonesAldington proposals they have jumped in and are kicking with both feet.

As the bosses plan unfolds, the full monstrousness of the Stalinist stewards' failure to fight, hammer and claw for the docks strike to go on becomes sickeningly apparent.