Mass Meetings to be Held in All Ports (Anger Mounts on Dock Scheme Proposals; Strings to pension proposals)

THE ambitions of the London Chamber of Commerce to introduce unregistered labour on the docks, have been brought closer to realization with the return of another Tory government.

Before the election, Ian Macleod former Tory Minister of Labour was considering the possibility of making such amendments. With their increased majority, the Tories will now feel free to press ahead.

To date, none of the docks' unions has made any real preparations to resist these strike-breaking amendments. Not one leaflet has been produced warning dockers of the employers' aims, nor has any of the unions held a single dock gate meeting.

The National Amalgamated Stevedores and Dockers—blue union, has circularized its own members with the amendments to the Dock Labour Scheme and also the employers' proposals but has not yet suggested any line of action. Last week, the London Clerks' branch of the NASD passed a resolution calling for dock gate meetings. Other blue union branches are also pressing for a campaign.

In Liverpool, Hull and now in London, the rank and file are beginning to move. A rank-and-file committee has been set up in Liverpool's north docks. This Sunday, the Hull liaison Committee—a body of NASD and Transport and General Workers' Union men—is holding a mass meeting of all Hull dockers to consider how to fight the amendments.

London portworkers hold meeting

Last Tuesday, hundreds of dockers at London's Royal Albert Dock heard Peter Kerrigan, a Liverpool blue union member, speak on the amendments.

'Every docker will be against this amendment that permits the Dock Labour Boards to disqualify a man from receiving benefit for 28 days' said Kerrigan.

'It means that you report for work and if there is none, then you don't get any attendance money.' he added.

Harry Watson, a member of the Communist Party and an executive member of the Lightermens' union intervened in the meeting. Watson carefully ignored the strike-breaking propositions and claimed that the amendment delegating powers from Local Boards to sub-committees or National Board Officers would not apply in every port. He also made the incredible assertion that the Liverpool men appeared to prefer their offences to be tried by such bodies or individuals. One suspects that Watson draws his conclusions about the attitude of the Liverpool portworkers from his encounters with Right-wing officials, not from discussion with ordinary dockers.

A member of Watson's union, informed him and the meeting that the Lightermen were officially on record against any delegation of powers by the Local Boards.

Many dockers consider the proposed Pension Scheme to be part of a deal by the employers to get amendments accepted to the Scheme.

The minutes of the TGWU National Docks Delegate Conference for August 6 reveal an aspect of the employers' proposals that the union leaders have not made clear to their members.

Outlining the Pension Scheme to the docks' delegates, national docks' secretary, Tim O'Leary said: 'It was pointed out that with the introduction of the Pension Scheme, the employers would expect a more peaceful industry, and it had been suggested by them that a committee be set up to look at the question of mechanization.'

In The Newsletter of June 6 we exposed the plans of the shipping employers for increased mechanization, showing how they wanted to slash the ship-side gangs from their present strength of 12, to three men and a stacker truck.

O'Leary went on to say: 'We have had a surplus of labour in this industry for some time, but we have always said to the employers, the registers must be maintained unless and until the men who retire get something extra to go out with.'

Apparently the TGWU docks' secretary considers the measly grant of £100 and ten shillings per week pension a fair price for the removal of thousands of old dockers from the register.

The sacking of the old men, the tightening up of the disciplinary clauses, the demands by the bosses for increased mechanization and the right to bring in scab labour, are the most serious threats made against the conditions of dockworkers since the end of the war. Only a powerfully organized rank-and-file movement can defeat these attacks of the employers and their Tory government.