Government dockers reject arbitration

the new CBI-TUC arbitration and conciliation service was given an icy reception by striking dockyard workers in London yesterday.

'How long is all that going to take?' asked Reg Robinson, shop steward at the Royal Naval Dockyard, Deptford. "They put these things to arbitration, it drags on for months and months and then we get nothing?

And steward Charlie Bell added: 'What do I think about our claim going before the CBI-TUC committee? I don't think anything of it. The whole TUC are a bunch of fencesitters. I've never known men who can put so many statement into a single meanings into single The 270 men at the Deptford yard staged their second one-day strike in three weeks yesterday in DILE BYTNO 28 Charlotte St London W1 BOOKS • PERIODICALS • NEWSPAPERS 'All this trouble started with our union officials, said Reg Robinson. 'In the past our negotiators haye accepted things which have made us disgusted.

"They've come down here with rises of 2s, patted us on the back and told us how much they've won' Just how much this has been over the years was shown on workers' paydockets, which, without overtime last week, averaged a paltry £12.

H. G. Sibley took home £ll and told me: Even cigarettes are becoming a luxury.' The government has offered a £1.75 rise, which, it claims, will add 9 per cent to the annual wagebill.

But as Reg Robinson said angrily: For us to get a basic minimum of £20 we have to have at least a £3 rise.' With overtime, which averages an hour a day for storemen, most of the ELA 2200 EWSPAPERS Stoward Charlie Bell men can earn £17 10s a week. Wages of the 28 drivers are substantially higher, but only because they work up to 80 hours a week.

Said Charlie Bell: "Overtime shouldn't be considered in this. They've already tried to take hour a day off the storemen. They can take it away at any time. Men in the stores section are really fighting for their lives.' Reg Robinson told me that the day he received the government's latest offer on August 21 he had a notice from the GLC saying his rent was going up by 99p.

And Charlie Bell added:

"Their offer's gone in the short time since we broke off negotiations and next year the cost of living will go up by 12 or 15 percent.

'With a family to keep, food, clothing, rent, haircuts and cigarettes, even £20 would still leave a lot of our men below the poverty line' The workers say dockers earn double their money for the same job, and complain that 16-year-old typists earn more than they do. Some have sons taking home over £30 a Apart from this month's national dock strike, the Deptford men have not struck since 1926.

Now, they say, solidarity amongst government shipNOW OPEN Mon, Tues, Wed, Thurs Fri 9 a.m.-7.30 p.m.

Sat 9 a.m.-5 p.m. saying "We'll get this settled quickly and strike until we get what we want", they turned round and told us it's up to us.

'They said we knew best what to do at local level.' Shares dive SHARE PRICES continued to drift downwards on the London Stock Exchange yesterday. After the first half hour's trading the 'Financial Times' Index had fallen back 2.3 points to 520. The latest slide was set off by Thursday's warning on inflation from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research.

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TUESDAY Amount enclosad E County Tyrone.

THE OFFICIAL IRA has condemned the bombing campaign of the movement's Provisional The Officials say the Provisionals have no mandate from the public.

When did they ever consult the people on their views of the bombing of shops and restaurants and especially when did they ever ask the workers of various factories whom they blasted out of work continually'