Docks: Call for

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. Published by Folrose Ltd for the Workers Socialist League, BM Box 5277, London WC1V 6XX. Printed by Morning Litho Printers Ltd (TU) London. minar rentat ON Following the unanimous votes for strike action by a mass meeting of Liverpool dockers and by a national docks delegate conference, the Executive of the TGWU has endorsed a call for an all-out • stoppage from Monday September 22.

At issue is a move by dock employers in Liverpool to tear up the six-year old JonesAldington agreement which gave dockers in ports covered by the National Docks Labour Scheme a permanent guarantee of employment.

The agreement-which flowed from the stormy strikes and struggles of 1972-was accepted at the time by the employers because the TGWU in exchange conceded a major reduction of the dock workforce-implemented through a programme of large severance payments to dockers who sold their jobs.

But since that time the continued drive towards containerisation and other means of circumventing traditional cargo handling has gone alongside a slump in trade and a new crisis of profitability for the dock employers.

"Overmanning"

For several years now the employers have been complaining of "overmanning" on the docks. In London docks they even succeeded, through large redundancy payments, in securing a cutback in the workforce wthout a fight.

But the move by Liverpool dock employers to put 175 dockers onto the temporary unattached register is an unmistakeable move towards scrapping the terms of JonesAldington, imposing redundanContinued page 11