LONDON DOCK DISPUTE

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25859, 19 July 1949, Page 5

LONDON DOCK DISPUTE

STRIKERS HOLD MASS MEETING DRIVERS REFUSE SUPPORT (N.Z.P.A. —Renter—Copyright) LONDON, July 17. The London dockers were all anxious to work, but they would not work “black” ships and they were determined to continue the struggle, no matter what the sacrifice, said Mr E. Thomas, a'member of the Dockers’ Lockout Committee, when 10,000 persons crowded into Trafalgar Square to-day to hear protest speeches at a mass meeting of the dock strikers. About 1700 of the 14,63$ men in the dispute marched to the square. Among them were the striking Canadian seamen from the Beaverbrae and Argomont, the two ships which the dockers refuse to unload. Mr John Platts-Mills, an Independent Labour member of the House of Commons, said: “I challenge the Government with not wanting to solve this dispute. Even I could settle it in 10 minutes.”

A member of the strike committee of the Canadian Seamen’s Union issued, on behalf of the striking seamen, a statement that they were ready to meet the Canadian shipowners immediately in an attempt to settle the dispute. A committee representative of 700 drivers and transport workers at the Spitalfields Market decided to-day, after hearing the case put by the Canadian seamen and the dockers, to continue handling the fruit and vegetables being unloaded at the London docks by troops. The meeting was addressed by a Canadian seaman and two dockers. After the meeting, a spokesman for the drivers said: “We stand by the country and the Government. Our attitude is that if we refuse to handle the food unloaded by the troops, then we and our wives and children have no right to eat it.” The Avonmouth dockers, who recently struck for five weeks against handling ships manned by the striking Canadian seamen, have refused to support the London strike. The future of the trade union movement depended on the course taken in the London docks dispute, said the president of the National Union of Mineworkers (Sir William Lawther) at a miners’ meeting in Northumberland.

“No one will deny the seriousness of Britain’s position,” Sir William Lawther said. “The dock dispute is part of a huge conspiracy to wreck our economic structure. I urge you to note that a few days ago appeals from Poland and other countries urged solidarity with the London dockers, but you have yet to read of the Polish dockers taking action with strikes. The reason is very simple. They are not allowed to. “British trade unionists must make up their minds whether they are going to be pawns in the game being played. The Czech delegate at our miners’ conference last week said: ‘We must produce more and better coal than the former capitalist proprietors did if we wish to raise the living standards of our workers.’ That is happening in the Iron Curtain countries. yet the opposite is being done here by the same representatives, who stop production altogether where they can.”