The Jones-Aldington promises that never came true New jobs for dockers: A cruel deception

LATEST figures for the number of new jobs found for dockers at container depots show a huge discrepancy with the number of men who have left the industry or want to leave under special severance terms.

While 4,500 have already gone nationally and 2,000 more have applied to go? the new jobs total is ... just 250.

So all the promises on which union leaders ended last year's national dock strike are shown to be frauds.

As Workers Press warned at the time, the promises were designed to inflict a permanent cut in the docks labour force and a major attack on dockers' hard-won rights. This is now happening.

Take Merseyside, where

register of dockers has been cut by 20 per cent.

There a new deal has just been signed with one of the biggest container operators which provides exactly 2o new openings tor registered men.

The deal with the OCL-owned Containerbase Federation is hailed by the current issue of 'The Port' as following in the wake of the Jones-Aldington proposals that more container groupage work should be obtained for registered dock labour'. MP proposes trade war tactics to save Concorde orders ANTI-CONCORDE activities in the United States should lead to reprisals by Britain and France against American interests in the Common Market, says Bristol Tory MP Robert Adley.

He has written a strong letter to premier Edward Heath as American aircraft interests and their 'conservationist' allies intensify their campaign to persuade Pan-American Airways not to take up their option on eight Concordes.

Cancelled

On October 28 last year United Airlines, the largest US domestic airline, cancelled its option • six aircraft. If PanAm follows suit, there will be options for only 24 Concordes in the whole of the American market.

August 27, 1970: 'If Pan-Am's marked reluctance to commit itself to a definite purchase hardened into a rejection, other airlines grappling with the same problems, but with far inferior BY OUR INDUSTF CORRESPONDEN DAVID MAUDE In fact negotiatio started well befor Aldington committ lished. And, in any jobs-and the pos more before the en -cannot in any 1 gaping hole the cor posals have pun‹ Merseyside labour Since severance-p increased for five r with the committ last September, the has fallen from ne 7,500.

Meanwhile tonna rore, productivity despite closure of of Liverpool docks In other words.

General Workers' secretary Jack J‹ ations with Port Authority chairman ton have already gc to changing the fa dustry by stealth.

The agreement union leaders employers has led where there may a shortage of labo port which had n surplus labour bef‹ strike.

Another 'new n to the Jones-Al mittee on Merse opening of a con resources, will be even less to commit themselves.' Every capitalist airline has the same problem-a vastly-increased capital expenditure launched in the mid-1960s on the basis of an expected expansion of the passenger market which did not materialize.

Now they face soaring a declining market.

Profits turned to losses in 1969. Trans-World Airlines lost $39.9m; United Airlines $15.1m; and Pan-American $25m (compared with a profit of $49m in 1968).

This has led to world-wide rationalization, speed-up, attacks on wages, sackings, monopoly growth... and trade war.

The Concorde is in a weak position in this war because its development costs have increased more than eight-fold since the first Anglo-French development agreement was signed in 1962. These costs are now in the region of £900m.

Onl August lo, 1971, the French partner in the projectAerospatiale — said each Concorde (with spares) would cost ns on the deal e the Jonesee was estab' case, 26 new sibility of 30 id of the year way plug the mmittee's proched in the say terms were nonths in line ee's proposals : port register arly 10,000 to ge and, thereis increasing the south end ; last August. Transport and Union general ines' deliberof London 1 Lord Alding›ne a long way ice of the inbetween the and the port to a situation well soon be ur. This in a o problem of ore last year's nove' credited dington comyside is the itainer group£13m. Less tha later this figure wards to £20m.

But turers corde their sonic ready age depot at the old B and I Lines' terminal, Trafalgar Dock.

There registered labour employed by the Mersey Docks and Harbour Company will stuff and strip containers for the Far East trade, recently transferred to Southampton. The containers will travel to and from Southampton by road.

But the depot will provide no new jobs for dockers, since the men required will be drawn from the 50 already working for B and I Lines at the dock.

A preamble to the JonesAldington interim report, published in July 1972, promised that a 'considerable number' of new job opportunities for dockers would be provided if its terms were accepted.

The main problem in the industry, the report said, was the existence of a large temporarily unattached register (TUR), then comprising 1,650 men.

Union leaders on the committee also accepted employers' estimates that they were carrying 10 per cent of labour surplus to their requirements. There was no suggestion that the intention of the, report's proposals was to get rid of these other 4,000 men. Yet this is what has happened.

The report proposed abolition of the TUR and the sharing out of surplus men between all the employers in the port.

In five months was revised upBut the major threat to Concorde--and the 25,000 jobs at stake in Britain and France-is the determination of American capitalism to protect its leadership in civil aeronautics.

The US holds some 70 per cent of world aircraft exports and Britain and France about 25 per cent between them.

Opponent

the American manufacstill want to keep Conout of the US market until own Boeing 2707 SuperTransport (SST) plan is in a few years' time.

The project's engineering director William Hamilton explained in November, 1969: 'We view the Concorde as an opponentwhen our supersonic airliner is introduced, Concorde will suit a number of lesser routes.' The 2707 will certainly be superior to the Concorde, which is small and has inadequate baggage space, narrow Compensation for carrying a surplus should be claimed • by employers from the central fund of the National Dock Labour Board, the report said.

The dockers themselves would also be expected to make an appropriate contribution' by systems of work-sharing. As only sistently, it was admitted by Jack Jones that this could mean a loss of earnings for dockers.

But the real sting in the report's tail was the proposal for a hve-month campaign to persuade men to leave the industry by raising severance pay to £4,000 maximum.

This was hard, specific and far-reaching. It was quickly and enthusiastically taken up by Tories.

On the other hand there was nothing hard or specific definite about either:

The interim report's promise of talks between unions, employers and port authorities on making groupage work available to dockers. • Jones-Aldington's further pledge to 'continue its efforts to guarantee groupage containers and port-type work' to registered dockers.

The cruel deception involved in this trick has been shown on Merseyside. fuselage, inaccessible components and high operating costs.

One thing can be asserted without a doubt-the jobs of thousands of European and American aircraft workers are at risk as this battle of the giants intensifies. • The first flight of the second pre-production Concorde is expected today. Originally scheduled for Toulouse last Sunday, the flight was twice postponed because of bad weather. I would like informatior Lord Aldington, Port of London Authority chairman, seen over the shoulder of T&GWU secretary Jack Jones during their early deliberations last Their committee promisey hear. more jobs for registered dockers—but these promises have never been fulfilled.